BXBX NOVEL Chapter 2 Mana Conduit 2
Tamara led Jay down a hallway to a room with the ruby-bath in the centre, gesturing to Jay to enter the room. The bath tub was as big as any other bathtub – yet with a small ruby gem socketed into its base, a metal cage covering the gem to stop petty thieves.
Tamara pointed to the corner of the room “There’s a basket there to put your dirty clothes in, along with a change of clothes on that shelf. I’ve left a towel and some soap there too. If you need anything just call out down the hallway and I’ll hear you.”
Jay nodded as Tamara closed the door, leaving Jay alone in the room.
Checking that the door was locked, Jay turned around to start undressing as he noticed wisps of steam, dancing on top of the water. Enticed by the warmth, he hurriedly took his clothes off and threw them in the general direction of the basket before hopping into the bath.
At first it was hot, but soon his skin adapted to the heat and it felt comfortable. As his muscles untensed themselves from the shivering, he could finally relax.
“Ahhhh… 5 gold well spent” He smiled in delight.
Suddenly, he panicked. Grabbing the sides of the bathtub, he froze.
“I still need to reach the mana conduit! SHIT!” Jumping out of the bath, he grabbed the towel and wrapped it around himself. He remembered that the sun was about to set as he was shocked awake by that crow so he’s really cutting it close.
Opening the door he yelled “TAMARA!”
Hearing footsteps, Tamara appeared “yes?”
“I need to get to the adventurers’ association as soon as possible. Can you please request a carriage for me?” Jay blurted out.
“Ahh… yeah sure… just… isn’t it closed today?” Tamara said quizzically.
“No? why would it be closed?”.
“Well, yesterday was the 7th of the 7th, and they will have a lot of paperwork to go through after all the 18 year olds have their classes now, so they’re normally closed on the 8th of the 7th..?”
Jay felt his heart squeeze tightly as he unconsciously held his breath “Yes…yesterday…” he looked like he had seen a ghost.
“…Never mind.”
Closing the door slowly, Jay completely forgot about Tamara standing there; thankfully the door closed before his towel fell down. Standing naked in the room staring at the closed door, a few moments passed as reality caught up with Jay.
“I missed it… my one opportunity to escape this hole. How? why? WHY?!” Gritting his teeth, he began to get angry as he slowly walked back to the bath and got in, not wasting the water.
“I’m going to be a fucking butcher forever h…ha…..haha..hahaha…”
He thought about the new adventurers, a root of jealousy growing in his heart as they were now training and learning about the system and their classes.
“What’s that word they say? Oh yeah… status” He said bitterly with eyes half closed and a defeated smile, knowing he will be a butcher forever.
<[Necromancer level 1]>
HP: 45/45
MP: 25/25
Strength: 15
Dexterity: 25
Vitality: 15
Energy: 25
<[Skills]>
[Raise Feeble Creature level 1]
[Class Utility] (Passive)
“Wha…?” with a furrowed brow and half-opened eyes, Jay took some time to process what he was seeing. Re-reading it again, then a third time, Jay felt his heart jerk him awake before he paused in shock….
“I’m…I’M A NECROMANCER?!?!” He yelled to himself as he sat in the bath “Isn’t this supposed to be a monster class?!”
Looking around, he felt a strange mix of embarrassment, excitement and fear – but most of all, he was thankful no one heard him.
“How… Why… I just wanted to be a swordsman, shit, even a pugilist class would’ve been fine… Even a fucking monk class – I would accept that too.”
I’ve been using a knife most of my life working in the butchery after all? Aren’t I supposed to get a class that suits me?”
Jay thought about why he would get a weird class like this, before realising he spent a lot of time looking at dead corpses, cutting them, hanging them, gutting them, analysing the meat and learning the bone structure of many different kinds of forest animals.
A slight feeling of dread came over Jay as it dawned on him.
“…Yeah ok, that makes sense I guess. Kinda perverted when I think about it like that though.” he reasoned.
“A necromancer… I have only heard rumours of these types of monsters.. Aren’t most of them powerful undead skeletons?” he wondered, looking at his hands. He then felt silly because obviously he was still alive.
While he was happy to have a class, he didn’t know what to feel – fear of being hunted down for having a monster class? Happiness that he’s not a butcher anymore? Excitement for the future adventures he would have? Though the strongest of these emotions was currently fear.
“Should I tell someone? Hmm.. I guess I have to reason at the moment, but I should build trust with someone before telling them in private. In the meantime, I will have to pretend I’m a support class with only a self-buffing ability, maybe a slight speed buff or something, since my dexterity and energy are high.“ He stroked his chin as he sat quietly in the bath.
“Well, at least this means I’m kind of an adventurer now” He smiled, trying to look on the bright side.
“I guess I can test my abilities today and check out the adventurer guild tomorrow to see current quests, or maybe find some low level monster zones or dungeons.” Jay realised the association would still be closed for quests due to the rush of new adventurers from today, so he had time to plan for now.
Cleaning the mud off his skin, he got out of the bath, put on a provided gown and went to sleep. Jay slept for the rest of the day as he recovered, only waking up early in the morning the next day, Jay changed into his clean clothes waiting outside his room and left the inn.
Walking along the street, he thought about his new skill [Raise Feeble creature]. A notification appeared before his eyes.
<[Raise Feeble Creature level 1]>
– Imbue a skeleton with necrotic energy, raising it to fight for you.
[0/1 Raised]
[“Raise”]
[Cost 5 mana (+3 mana per level of feeble creature)]
“It sounds kind of cool I guess, I wonder how strong it will be.” Jay thought, wandering through the cobblestone streets. It didn’t take long before he found an opportunity for his only skill – a desiccated rat corpse in a quiet alley.
The rats in Losla were large, about the size of a cat. Women hated them the most due to the rats being able to prey on babies and sometimes even toddlers.
He walked up to the dead rat casually, then checked the alley, making sure no one was looking. He pointed at the corpse, casting his spell.
“Raise.”
20% of his mana left his body in one go, and Jay felt a little dizzy. Some green gas formed around his hand and drifted over the corpse. The green gas circled around the corpse but now seemed to be waiting a moment. Raising a brow as he stared at the corpse with the green cloud around it, he was wondering what was happening.
“Hey, are you gonna do anything? Can you hurry up…?” He wanted the skill to go faster before someone entered the alley.
Suddenly, the green mist entered the corpse through its mouth, it was like it was being inhaled.
“So I guess I’ll get an undead rat as a buddy? It’ll be fine as long as it doesn’t touch me.” Thought Jay, not wanting to even smell the large rat corpse, “desiccated rat corpse is disgusting… Even a living rat is pretty filthy.”
Suddenly, the rat corpse pulsated, it’s chest rising up and down as it’s skin roiled, and boils of fat and pus appeared on the surface of it’s skin.
Amazed, Jay stared at it – and then before his widened eyes, it suddenly exploded – bits of flesh flicked everywhere, a lot covering Jay, some landing near his lips.
“MMMMMM! MMMM!!!!!!!” wanting to scream in anger and disgust, he didn’t dare open his mouth in case some rotting flesh entered it; he quickly wiped the pieces of flesh off his face.
“FUCK, I want to die, fuck this, I’ll be a butcher for life I don’t even care anymore. This is the worst day ever. No, actually, the worst two days since I was knocked out for nearly a full day thanks to that smug prick in the carriage.”
Wanting to die after having desiccated rat flesh land on his face, Jay made a mental note to stand back after casting this skill next time.
Looking at the corpse, he realised that only the flesh, hair, muscles and organs were gone – splattered all over the alley around him; what remained were simply the bones floating in a cloud of green mist.
The mist wrapped around the bones as they shifted and morphed. The cartilage cracked and popped as the rat bones re-shaped themselves into a humanoid skeleton creature with a hunch back and tiny horns on its head.
The green mist was solidifying, acting like a jelly at the joints of the bones.
The creature was about the size of a small child. It had long spindly bone fingers with tiny claws at the end. If Jay were to guess what it was, he would naturally think it was a goblin skeleton.
Two hollow eyes with tiny green glowing spheres floating in the middle of the eye sockets looked up at Jay from the rat skull with anticipation, as if to say “I’m ready to kill, what can I kill? Where is my target?” with it’s creepy spindly-like hands ready to slash.
Freaking out, Jay wanted the creature to get away from him – and as if it read his thoughts, the green jelly on the joints of the creature all dissipated back into the mist and disappeared while the bones crumbled back onto the ground – some turning to ash and blowing away, while others turned back into what looked like normal rat bones.
“Freaky…” Analysing the bones, Jay gained some understanding of the process.
“Huh, so it seems like my power is semi-autonomous. It responds to my thoughts immediately but also can act independently when I don’t focus. Interesting. The creature was made up of bones which clearly didn’t belong to a rat, especially since it increased in size – and some of these ‘bones’ turned into ash. Perhaps that’s part of my magic too, to fill in the gaps where a creature is lacking.” Jay squinted at the remaining bones.
“Maybe that’s why I can only do smaller ‘feeble’ creatures at the moment? Because I would need to fill in more gaps for the larger ones..? I guess I should level up quickly and find out. I would like to test this on a dead bird and other corpses too – to see if I get the same creature or a different one.”
Jay considered combining different creature corpses’ as he walked to the adventurer association; If a bird corpse made a different creature, surely combining a few different corpses would make something stronger.
Of course, he will need to find a few different corpses first. So far, he has only managed to find a desiccated rat.
“Well, I guess I can kill something in one of the adventurers association’s quests.” He thought with a sly smile as he attempted his second trip to the association.