The Dreamer's Fall

Chapter 28 - The First Step Towards Necromancy

A dim blue light illuminated Arthur's bedroom as the magic circle slowly appeared before his hand. The casting speed of the spell was slow, thanks to the recent alterations, but there was room for improvement.

The more he cast it, the more the spell's structure would become second nature to him. Still, the casting speed for such a complex spell would always take a few minutes.

This is because casting a spell was essentially writing with mana, and even the quickest writers in the world couldn't fill a page's worth of words in a few seconds. Of course, he could always imprint it on his mana core and nullify the casting time, but he had no intention to do so just yet.

The number of spells he could imprint was limited, and this was only the first step in completing a workable necromancy spell. Arthur had many additions he intended to add to the spell before he would consider it complete and ready to imprint.

Once the magic circle was formed, Arthur executed the spell as a gentle breeze circled the room. The candlelight flickered behind him as a bright blue light radiated from the man's eyes.

It looked as if the world's brightest flashlight rattled within the man's skull, creating some sort of grotesque light show. And as the blue light pulsed, the corpse's body contracted its muscles in unison as if being electrocuted.

The man's corpse went limp, and the illumination from within his skull dissipated as if it were a lie, yet Arthur was smiling and holding back his urge to laugh.

It worked! He instantly felt a connection to the corpse, as if the man's body were just another limb to exert his will upon.

Arthur urged it to stand in his mind, but the sensation of controlling the corpse felt strange and disjointed. It was as if he was controlling his own body in some third-person virtual reality game, except his point of view was in front of the corpse instead of behind it.

It created a surreal disconnect, and Arthur felt like he'd need to relearn all his motor functions to control the corpse properly, but he had no intentions of wasting his time on such a novelty.

Every moment that passed while he directly controlled the corpse was quickly draining his mana. The spell itself had consumed a quarter of his mana to cast, and controlling the corpse for just a few minutes had depleted another quarter.

Thanks to his mana limitation, learning to control the corpse would take weeks. Another detriment was it required concentration to maintain control, leaving him vulnerable to attacks. Of course, the many uses of a puppet didn't escape him, but as of right now, he needed more mana to wield it efficiently.

"It worked? It worked, right?!" Kyren excitedly shouted as he glanced between the struggling corpse and Arthur. "Hahaha! You did it, kid!"

"Remember, it's just the first step," Arthur replied. He stopped controlling the corpse and let its struggling body fall to the floor as if its puppet strings were suddenly cut.

Arthur paced around the room, thinking aloud. "I'd need to devise some way to prevent rot, or perhaps getting rid of the flesh altogether would be simpler... Spreading disease might be a bonus if I left it as is, but I'm not immune to its effects either, and I'd likely be around them more than the enemy..."

Kyren floated over and followed him. "What are you mumbling about?"

"I'm trying to figure out what to work on first."

Kyren looked back at the corpse. "What do you mean? Is there something wrong with the spell?"

"It worked as intended. It gave me power over the corpse as if it were one of my hidden blades, but in the end, it's still a corpse. It'll start to smell in a few hours as it begins to rot, especially in Revan, where it's hot and humid.