Jay started with the swords first, and like last time, he decided to use the silt-wolf bone, as it was stronger than human bones.
“Ah, my best work yet.” Jay gazed at a new ossein arming sword as he analysed it.
[Ossein Arming Sword Level 3]
[Silt-wolf bone]
[12 damage] - Slashing, piercing.
[Sharpness +]
[Lifespan - Requires necrotic essence to maintain it's form]
[Current lifespan: 96 hours]
Compared to before, the sword was longer and skinnier now. It looked less like a wide-blade shortsword and more like a normal sword you would see adventurers using.
As Jay stared at its edge, it seemed to give off a sense of sharpness, and an ever so faint ringing noise sounded in his ears.
“Eugh,” he looked away, “weird.”
Jay didn’t understand the subtle aura he was feeling from the sword but he assumed it was to do with the new [sharpness] stat he saw on it, so he simply accepted it with an uncaring shrug before handing it to one of the skeletons.
Of course, he crafted an extra one for himself before equipping the rest of them as well.
Next, he crafted some daggers for the level one skeletons, but he only gave one of them a dagger as an idea suddenly popped into his head.
“Hmm…” He made another sword with a longer grip and gave it to the level one skeleton.
The skeleton happily grabbed the bone sword, but was forced to use two hands to dual-wield it, as it was a little too large for it.
“You’ll be my first zweihander.” Jay nodded, anticipating its role selection when it would hit level four.
Since only four of the skeletons had armour, Jay considered making armour for all of them, though after some consideration he decided it would take too much time and too much mana.
After all, he did have other priorities today… though he paused as he realised something.
“What if…” he scratched his chin as a fire seemed to suddenly light behind his eyes,
“...if there is a class associated with wearing armour?”
The more he thought about it, the more he smiled, and soon a devilish smile formed on his face, and his curiosity drove him for the next few moments as he immediately began to craft armour for one of the smaller skeletons.
The new armour was smaller to suit the level one skeleton, but just as thick as the spectral armour of the level four skeletons, which gave it a thicker, heavier look overall.
As it equipped the armour, the small skeleton began to look more like a skeletal dwarf with hulking armour that it kept from its previous life.
After crafting greaves, a helmet and vambraces, he still wasn’t pleased, so Jay decided to go the extra step and finish it’s whole armour set, adding a basic chest-plate and some upper leg armour.
Unfortunately for the poor skeleton, Jay had to remove its head to fit the chest armour into place, but once it was on it was a snug fit.
Initially, Jay was trying to fit the armour to the skeletons body and didn’t give a single thought about aesthetic, but it ended up having a gothic style about it, and despite its basic structure it looked quite imposing.
He wanted to craft gauntlets (hand armour) and sabatons (foot armour) but that kind of armour was a bit more advanced, requiring moving parts, and right now it was simply beyond Jay’s scrimshaw skill level.
Apart from its feet, hands, and gaps between the armour pieces, everything else was now covered by chunky light-grey armour. It truly looked like a little soldier ready to take on a fearsome beast three times its size.
“Hmm,” Jay smiled, “with enough time I could cover it completely and no one would even know it’s a skeleton…”
“Well, I guess it depends on what the analysis skill tells them.” he thought.
“I wonder… if Anya analyses Blue, would it tell her its name and percentage health, or treat it as a monster and tell her everything else…”
Jay decided he would ask her when he next saw her - so probably not long as he was headed to the guild anyway.
After its upgrade, the skeletons' green, hungry eyes peered out from behind its T-visor as it seemed to want to test out its new armour - perhaps even more than Jay did.
These level one skeletons had not had the privilege of fighting monsters yet, and that seemed to only add to their slaying spirit; their war fervour.
However, Jay wasn’t quite done with upgrading his heavy infantry skeleton.
Unlike the zweihander skeleton, this one still had a hand free, so he created one last item for it.
Before their eyes a kite shield formed. It was slightly too large for the level one skeleton, but Jay wanted it that way, as he believed it would force it into becoming some sort of heavily armoured soldier class.
After crafting the shield, Jay thought he was probably close to levelling up his scrimshaw skill, but he remembered that he had to craft multiple daggers to level it last time, so he decided he wouldn’t grind it to the next level. At least not today.
With a dagger in one hand and its shield in the other, the heavy infantry skeleton was finally ready.
The skeleton seemed to struggle with the weighty shield, but Jay didn’t care, as it was meant to be heavy, and Jay thought this would only contribute more to its role choice.
“It will be fine once it levels up anyway… and then I will find out if its armour grows with it too.” Jay thought as he watched it.
He hoped that was the case, but he knew its weapons wouldn’t grow along with it, so he guessed that its shield wouldn’t either, meaning it would soon be a comfortable size for this undead.
With a nod towards Blue, the skeletons began to depart, but Jay gave them one final order as he noticed one of them was too slow to keep up.
“Keep the armoured one at the front.” Jay commanded.
His training style was pretty hands-off but so far it was effective.
The heavy-armour skeleton was forced to move to the front, and because of that, all the skeletons had to move at jogging speed - rather than at their speedy sprinting speed like usual.
“Good.” Jay nodded, seeing his skeletons leave in an orderly march.
Jay watched them pass along the silent river and head into the darkened tunnel before venturing deeper into the mine. He had a proud smile on his face as he watched his soldiers carrying out their duties.
“Alright, no slacking.” he said to himself as he willed to exit the dungeon.
Jay decided to leave the bone pile in the dungeon in case any of the skeletons levelled up or needed to heal using their bone eater skill - though he knew he would have to come back at some point as the level one’s didn’t come with the recovery skill.
Still, they were only here to get him experience and possibly some more silt-wolf bones too.
Jay made his way to the guild, periodically practising his mana sense skill along the way.
As he got back to the path and walked through the rocky outcrops, he noticed more of those black guards standing outside the guild entrance.
“...Damn, more of these guys?” Jay frowned lightly as he slowed his steps; these guards made him feel like they could almost read his mind.
“I’ll have to adjust my plans.”
