Necromancer's Resolve

Foster crunched up a granola bar in between his teeth and tiredly flipped to the next page, although he was soon interrupted by a quiet ringing, accompanied by a blue box.

[You are now Level 10. +5 Stat Points]

[Class Skill acquired]

[Body of Death][Level – 1]

[Effect - Infuse your body with necromantic energy]

[Cost – 20 Mana per second][Type – Active]

"Infuse my body...?" Foster asked quietly, but then just shook his head as he slowly stood up, "Nevermind." He muttered and placed the book that he just read away. He managed to read most of the books on the topic of 'Dyotis'-related things, but other than that, there wasn't really much that he thought was worth reading.

Especially not the few novels that were here, whether they were transcribed plays or collections of poems. There were quite a few of those, actually.

The only thing that Foster still had to figure out how to read was the book that the Lich was reading before. But he had been pretty hesitant to approach the throne after what happened before, so he couldn't look around for clues either.

The reason why Foster was quite unsure about how to handle the book was rather simple. He just couldn't read the words. Foster couldn't say for sure since he's only been reading things in this language for a couple of hours now. Still, he was pretty sure that this was a whole other language to the Arthor language.

So for now, Foster just slowly placed this book into his backpack together with the book about the he already found. He actually also found the intermediate and advanced versions of that book, but the advanced version was nearly completely destroyed, with only a few pages being the exception, At the same time, the intermediate version seemed to be missing roughly half of its content.

Foster was pretty annoyed about this, but there wasn't much he could do about it now, really. He was glad he had the basic hand-to-hand form to look at at all.

But first, there were some other things that Foster had to think about as well. In games, equipment was usually one of the most important things you could pay attention to. Since this class was one that was made for hand-to-hand combat, apparently, he didn't really need any weapons. Not like he knew much about how to fight using those anyway.

Sure, he knew the basics of how to handle straight-swords. Foster even knew a little bit about how monkey-staffs worked, since the place he trained at had a guest-instructor for a week or so. He actually came straight from the Chinese Shaolin temple, and just getting the chance to watch that guy at work was one of the coolest experiences in Foster's life so far.

If Foster didn't have to worry about things like debt and somehow keeping himself alive, he was told that the guest-instructor would even help him get a spot at the Shaolin temple to train if he was interested. But that really just ended up being an empty dream that he couldn't follow.

And worse, after Claire's parents, the owners of the gym in the town Foster worked and used to live in, bought the Dojo that he used to train at, he wasn't even able to afford to go there anymore. Because Foster's grandfather was a good friend of the old owner of that place, Foster had basically gotten a deal to train there for free for a lifetime.

That changed after the owner changed as well, though. And for the most part, while there were still a few martial-arts lessons in the dojo, the space was really just used for things like yoga and pilates anyway. It was a shame, but at that point, Foster had to stop training in martial arts. It seemed like right now was a good moment to start again, though.

But before he could worry about getting his martial-arts touch back, Foster needed to figure out if this really worked like a game. Slowly, he grabbed one of the rings that had dropped to the floor before, and took a look at it, trying to use 'Appraisal' for that. And the screen that appeared in front of him with a quiet ba-bling told him somewhat surprised him, really.

[Platinum Ring of the Necromancer]

[Description] A platinum ring that has been infused with necromantic energies due to being worn by a greater undead for centuries. It was originally a wedding ring.

[Effect] +100% Efficiency to all Necromancy-related spells

"A wedding ring?" Foster muttered quietly, and then slowly spotted something else that was hidden in the dust that used to be the Lich's body. It was something rather cliché to see like this, but it was a smaller gold ring hanging on a necklace.

[Golden Ring of the Necromancer]

[Description] A golden ring that has been infused with necromantic energies due to being worn by a greater undead for centuries. It was originally a wedding ring.

[Effect] -50% Cost to all Necromancy-related spells

Foster looked at the two rings in his hand, and with a deep sigh, pulled the platinum ring over his middle finger, and the golden ring over his little finger, since it only fit there. Maybe he was able to get its size changed somewhere... Although now that he thought about it, that might be pretty disrespectful. These were once wedding rings, after all.

But for now, that really didn't matter all that much. After what this Lich did, Foster wasn't sure if he should worry about things like that right now. It was better than leaving the ring alone and possibly risk being killed because he was too weak.

But then, there was something else that Foster had to consider. The actual clothes that the Lich was wearing before. He wasn't really able to get a good look at them from afar because of the dim lighting, but now that he actually had them right in front of him, he could really see them pretty well.

They looked quite similar to his old training uniform, just that this one was pitch-black and actually seemed to be made of a pretty weird material. It was somewhat silky to the touch but incredibly heavy at the same time. It had metal-like parts around the collar and at the end of the sleeves, and the belt especially seemed to be weirdly heavy.

In total, it seemed like this whole thing might be rather hard to move in, or at least that's what Foster thought at first. That was before he looked at the status.

[Robes of the Dyotis Necromancer]

[Description] Robes made out of thread won from the Djieien. They may be heavier than regular robes would be, but they were infused with necromantic energies after being worn by a greater undead for centuries. So, on top of their naturally superior defense, they have become an immense support to any Necromancer.

[Effect] -35% Damage from Magical Attacks; -40% Damage from Physical attacks; +100% Efficiency to the flow of necromantic energies in your body

"I have not the slightest clue if this is good or bad... But it sounds pretty neat..." Foster muttered quietly, and then slowly picked the robes up before trying to shake the... Lich dust out of them, before folding them up to bring them with him for now.

"Hmm... he did also wear shoes, but... they're pretty worn-out, and it makes me feel itchy just thinking about wearing them... If I can find a town, maybe a cobbler can re-make these into something I could actually use?" He whispered, and then just picked them up as well, clearing them out from the dust that was in them as well.

"But first, I'll have to clean all of it, I guess..." He added, and then slowly turned around before placing his backpack onto his back, making his way toward the tunnel that he initially entered through again.

On his way out, Foster lightly turned toward the pile of dust that used to be Georg and grimaced slightly, "I'm sorry, but I can't stay here forever... I'll do what you wanted me to." Foster said, trying to reassure the person that wasn't there anymore.

Sure, he may have tried to screw Foster over, but he did it for reasons that he could understand in the end. After being stuck somewhere for 25 years without the ability to sleep, eat, or even masturbate, who wouldn't try and go for more extreme methods to somehow change the situation?

He wasn't exactly sure what Georg had expected a weak person like Foster to do, at least he was weak in this world's standards, but then again... You had to try whatever you could. Someone desperate wouldn't think about such matters as intensely.

In the end, Georg, Jakob, and Ernard were the first people that he met in this world. Without them, he probably would have died within the next night, so he was fairly grateful for that.

Once Foster reached the other side of the tunnel again, he simply approached the glowing body of water in front of him, and scooped up a little bit of it with his hand. "Hmm... it seems clean enough, I guess." Foster muttered, and then just started to try and clean the robes that he found, scrubbing them as much as he could. Weirdly enough, it seemed like these robes were actually hydrophobic, and that to an immense extent that even after being placed into the water for a little while, they simply returned to being completely dry a couple moments after being pulled out.

After properly getting rid of the intense smell that these robes had, and actually surprisingly quickly at that, Foster chose to do something. Something he wouldn't have considered to do in another situation. He undressed to change into these robes.

Putting them on was a chore on its own, however, as they were weighing his body down immensely, making it hard to even stand upright properly. But weirdly enough, the cloth itself wasn't hanging down like it had such a heavy weight, but instead acted like any other type of fabric would.

"Alright, this is a bit annoying..." Foster muttered quietly and then slowly opened his status.

[Foster Locke]

[Class – Dyotis Necromancer][Level – 10]

[Health – 180/180]

[Mana – 190/190]

[Stamina – 200/200]

[Vitality – 9][Strength – 8][Endurance – 10]

[Agility – 10][Intelligence – 10][Wisdom – 9]

[Available Stat Points - 45]

[General Skills]

-[Appraisal LV. 3]

-[Arthor Language Comprehension LV. 11]

[Class Skills]

-[Body of Death LV. 1]

-[Deadly Surge LV. 1]

-[Draining Touch LV. 1]

-[Dyotis Form LV. 1]

-[Life Detect LV. 1]

[Available Skill Points – 1]

"Hmm, so my health, mana, and stamina each increased by a ten for each level?" Foster muttered quietly before looking at the two lines that made him the most curious right now.

"Stat and Skill Points, huh?" While thinking about what he may be able to do with those, Foster chose to just try it out and slowly tried to concentrate on increasing his strength by one point. And before he knew it, his strength became 9, and his 'available stat points' shrunk down to 44 with a quiet ring of a bell.

But when he tried something similar with the skill points, just attempting to increase the level of his skills, nothing happened. Well, it would have probably been a waste anyway, considering that it should get harder and harder to level those up over time, right? Maybe he should just wait until he experimented with skill points...

And so, Foster simply started to assign his stat points instead. With that increase of his strength by one, he felt weirdly invigorated, really. And once he pushed his strength all the way to 15, using another 6 stat points, his body felt lighter than it ever had before. To an incredible degree, really.

Then, Foster also pushed his vitality and endurance up a bit, also both to 15, using 11 more points. 'Agility' usually belonged to speed, and that might be what he needed the most if he wanted to run away from the Lunacides after getting back upstairs, so that was quickly pushed to 20, leaving Foster with 17 stat points. At this point, while his robes were still rather heavy, they were far lighter and even allowed Foster to move around a little bit more comfortably.

He thought that maybe using them for his intelligence and wisdom stats might be a good idea, but Foster wasn't exactly sure how much they would change. They seemed a little more abstract than the others, somehow. Foster first wanted to try those five skills of his out properly to see what all that was about. And then, maybe, Foster would also increase his intelligence and wisdom.