Viladore entered his office, drained and worn out after spending hours with Matheson, the young noble.
After the bayring dungeon, a small number of promising adventurers were picked by the association for further training. While Matheson wasn't picked for special classes, he still had enough money and power to get what he wanted.
"That kid will never get it..." He shook his head as he took off his mage cloak - which hovered itself over to the coat hook.
"He should just stick to his melee class. You can't just pay for an understanding of mana."
Viladore sighed "He would probably feel the ambient mana if he slowed down for a moment and gave it a try but I don't see that happening." he shook his head.
"Plus he keeps bringing those silly gems to class," Viladore smiled reluctantly, "as if that will change anything..."
"Adding fire or lightning damage to your sword attacks using gems is not manacraft."
He felt himself starting to get frustrated, but realized this would only affect him if he let it. With a shrug, Viladore sat down at his desk.
"Greetings, master." a tiny black cube sounded.
"Hello," He smiled as he picked up the black cube, touching its smooth surfaces for a moment. Despite being a 45 year old mage, Viladore enjoyed playing with the black cube.
Sitting it back down on the desk, he began conversing with it.
"How's your progress?"
The black cube didn't raise it's crystal eyes up since it was just being fumbled around in Viladore's hands, so it only replied.
"1,216 Instances of the routine were executed. Process intensity ran at 100%. Ambient mana sense failed to register 1,216 times."
"Mm?" Viladore nodded.
"I cannot sense ambient mana yet, Master."
"It's ok… I wasn't expecting you to without the new materials I ordered." Viladore sat down, leaning back while folding his hands together on his stomach. A single crystal eye raised and looked at him.
Viladore noticed his cube looking at him, he leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk with his fingers intertwined, his chin leaning on his thumbs as he thought for a moment, staring back at his cube.
"Since the materials I was hoping for have been delayed, you will have to wait. There's no sense continuing the routines without them."
"Yes, master. Going dormant." It's crystal eye retracted into the cube, forming a perfect seal and making the surface smooth again.
In the past few days, Viladore was doing complex calculations while waiting for a special delivery of semi-mana materials, certain these new materials will allow his cube to sense mana - the first step to the manipulation of it. From there, the possibilities were endless - as far as Viladore could tell anyway.
He lightly smiled to himself "I wonder who will grasp mana sense first… the cube or the boy..."
He had really low expectations for Matheson.
Walking alone through the desolate winter forest, Jay's minions were no longer following him since he had them return to stalking mode.
"Okay, let's see here…" Jay looked at his current skills.
<[Undead Mastery Level 2]>
[Your undead can reach a max level of (3). Level up is permanent]
[Current levels: 3, 2, 2]
He checked his other skill he was thinking of levelling up.
<[Raise Feeble Creature level 3]>
[Imbue a skeleton with necrotic life, raising it to fight for you.]
[3/3 Raised]
["Raise"]
[5 mana]
"Hmm... I could upgrade my skeleton mastery and their max level would be level four, but only one of them is level three at the moment... So it'd probably be better to put my skill point into the raise ability, getting me another level one."
"Besides, in the future I'll probably want more than three..." an image flashed through Jay's mind of a horde of skeletons silently walking through a dark, misty forest. "...I wonder how many I can have."
Jay thought to himself as he walked through the forest, pushing aside another branch as he walked back to the others. He had to choose between the two skills.
"Hmm… Maybe I should save the point?"
"...Nah. If I spend it on either, minions could be gaining exp and levelling up. It would actually be a waste not to spend it."
"I suppose a level one minion will be useless for a little while… hmm. I should get the other skeletons to make sure it hits an enemy before they finish it, that way it will get exp... are the skeletons even that smart? They might not understand the order."
Shrugging, Jay made a decision. "A new minion seems like the right choice. I'll have to get one sooner or later anyway, better to get it now while we're all kinda low level. If it's too slow at levelling up, I'll just get the other minions to let it fight alone. The level one skeletons are pretty fast anyway, faster than most creatures. So it should hold it's own with one of my...."
"Oh yeah," Jay scratched his head "I suppose one of my ossein swords will be too big for it. Thankfully I've still got some bone daggers."
Jay reasoned to himself "It'll have no problem keeping up with our party either, we're not that fast after all, certainly not faster than the skeletons."
Pausing for a moment, Jay stopped walking as he put his new skill point into the raise skill.
<[Raise Feeble Creature Level 4]>
[Imbue a skeleton with necrotic life, raising it to fight for you.]
[3/4 Raised]
["Raise"]
[5 mana]
Without waiting, he shifted his ring into its second form, a circle of bones and green gass floated around him.
"Raise." holding his hand out, bones intertwined and cartilage popped as a new minion formed before him.
It's main body composition was silt wolf bone, however a leftover soap rat skull drifted into its form. While it's body was blue because of the silt wolf bones, it's head was a soap rat skull. The silt wolf bones were a little thicker than the soap rat bones, so it looked like a buffed up level one skeleton.
[Chimera Research 5%]
"Uhh?" puzzled, Jay wondered why it didn't use one of the five silt wolf skulls he had - though as the creature formed, it started to make sense to Jay.
"Oh I see. It's been a while since I saw a level one skeleton."
Jay had forgotten just how big a level one feeble creature was, he recalled his ability used to say "Cast on a small skeleton".
"Perhaps a level one skeleton needs a smaller head since it's body is tiny."
Its height was just below Jays' hip. The soap rat head was already too large for its tiny body, while a silt wolf skull would probably cause it to fall over.
"Well, that's okay with me. Getting some extra chimera research will only be a benefit."
"Hmm, maybe one of these afternoons I should spend some time de-summoning and re-summoning just to get 100% of that chimera research…"
Making a mental note, Jay decided he would gather a few different bone types just to increase his amount of chimera research.
Turning to his new skeleton, he went to give it a bone dagger - but had a problem.
"Where did they go...?"
Jay was sure he had at least five bone daggers in his inventory - the ones his skeletons were using before he crafted them blue swords. Pursing his lips, he tried to remember if he ever took them out again but couldn't think of such a time. "Surely the magical inventory doesn't have holes in it like an old bag or something.."
