While being on the line of life and death, I often needed a breather, during that time I entered in my dimension and crafted quite a lot of weapons and instruments, but I soon found out that by using magic to create them, their quality drops quite a lot, even if I make some of them out of oricalcum.
From the knowledge passed onto me by the Earth Goddess, the difference can't be seen in the brief period, but you can already see it in the short one; the swords made with magic will retain their form and sharpness for more or less one minute of combact, and even then they're weaker than a blade made from the worst forging process.
The story slightly changes with instruments that are not needed in combat: they can retain their properties for a slight longer time (thirty minutes more or less) and because they're not used in a fight, the probability of them suddenly break is lower.
If I had the time I would've done everything in a forge, but because I have no time to lose this will have to do; at least from now on in place of forming simple spikes to kill undeads, I will use swords, lances and every kind of weaponry depending on against what they're weak.
Days passed as I killed undead after undear; no matter if big or small, strong or weak, they all fell in front of me. I lost count on how many times I entered in my Instintual combat skill, or how many of my skill masteries leveled up, there was only the next undead.
It was at the 12th day that it happened.
"Evolve in skeleton".
"Yes".
AAAAAH, it hurtsss, it's not like in the novels that you get sleepy and then evolve, in this world evolution means pain... a LOT of pain; now I understand why lesser monster chose to go down the elite path and not the evolution one: after the first time of experiencing this, I bet they will not do the same mistake twice.
Roughly ten minutes passed before the end of the evolution. I could hear some notifications, but in the situation I was in, there wasn't the possibility to look at them. Only after tirthy minutes the pain completely stopped and I could feel my body again.
Looking down at my legs and arms, I understood something; I have chosen to become a skeleton, but the evolution window didn't say which kind of skeleton I would become.
I had hoped for the classic human shaped skeleton, but I currently am... a ghoul skeleton.
This sucks.
I now really hope that my plan succeeds, or I could have made the worst error in my short 2nd life. "Show log, Show status, show skills".
This is a lot to take in, but everything is perfectly logical, I only hope that my physical stat will be rehabilitated in due time; I can't put status points in most of my stat because I lack muscles and brain... it seems my skills saved me again, if I had become a mindless skeleton, that would have meant my end.
For the same reason some skills are now unusable, for example Instinct of the beast will not work if I lack the necessary perception organs, though I can still use my Earth control skill and the spatial affinity to determine what there is in a ten meters radius around me.
What I can't understand is how skeletons manage to see; if I didn't have my two magic senses, I would be wandering in an endless black with only small flames where enemies are. It resembles my sight in the Nether realm.
Ah, I was starting to forget, but didn't I find another cheat? By devolving in a lesser race I can accumulate stat points, if only I had know before, I would've implemented this in my plan, but now it's too late.
I must say, walking as a skeleton gives a whole new meaning to exhibitionism, the feeling at the tought that people can see through me is weird and discomforting,
I gave a last look at myself and my skills and after a few tries them all, I started going back to the mansion... I was never so happy about my Automatic mapping skill, or I wouldn't have found my way back.
Time to get revenge.
As I arrived near the boundary of the manor, I stretched my telepathy contact: "Exalted master, there is a problem; a big mutant undead is approaching the mansion followed by an army of undeads, this one alone can't stop them, and this one fear that the traps will only slow them down; may this one suggest that exalted master deals with them?".
After some moments, the answer from the exalted idiot came: "My orders were to stop the undeads from reaching this manor, but you couldn't even do such a simple task, you will now fight to the death with them, if you die, then that's it, it doesn't matter, don't disturb me anymore from now on".
Oh? It seems that he really can't move, or he would've come to kill them all in order to defend his manor, let's give a last push just to be sure: "this lowly one asks for forgiveness exalted master, please save this lowly servant and Ithis lowly one will swear to never betray exalted master and always follow his orders to the best of my ability".
Again I had to wait some time before the answer came: "Kahahaha, to think that I regarded you as interesting, my sight must have gone bad, how could I find an idiot as a servant? It seems like you will die again in a short while, I only hope to not find you when I wake up in two years; in the situation I am in, I can't even move, so how could I save you? Now hear my order: go and die while fighting the undeads".
Well, it seems that I don't need to fear anything, I only need to go to the underground chamber of the manor.
While making my way down in he manor, the ancestor connected to me: "Why are you coming here? didn't I order you to fight the undeads? Do you want me to kill you personally? And why are you a skeleton now?"
So he actually can fell me in the manor, it wasn't just me thinking he could, but is there still a need to feign ignorance or to act as a servant? I'm already sick of it: "Well, my idiot ancestor, I'd say that from how you treated me, I can understand why someone killed you, and also why you were sent in Hell".
"You... how are you able to insult me? my magic should have wiped out any tought apart from being my loyal servant, how can you even think about insulting me?"
As I open the last door, I send back a reply: "Do you really think that all the people in this world are like you? Only an idiot gives out his plan and weaknesses before killing the target, but enough about this, I need your bones, and I'm going to take them".
I could feel the ancestor smirk inside my head: "I don't know how you could keep your memories after dying, but do you really think that I can't kill you without moving? Did you forget how I killed you the first time?".
"And do you really think that the same trick will work twice?" While saying that, I used my Earth and Plant control to obliterate the coffin, now the ancestor is laying on the hard, cold ground.
"DIE".
So he really did try it, but had I not the confidence to survive, would I have come back? Without saying anything else I positioned the ancestor in a
"Do you have any last word?".
As I said it, the ancenstor looked at me with eyes full of rage and scorn: "my body will disappear one minute after my death, you will never be able to take my bones little shit".
"Well, that could be true, one minute is not enough for me to obtain all your bones" I sent back while retrieving a complete set of surgery tools that I previously crafted out of oricalcum and mithril.
"But I never said that I needed you to be dead to take all your bones out of you".
Even if the silence reigned in the underground room, I could hear the ancestor's sceams trough the telepathy link; even after gathering all the ancestor's bones, I still experimented in order to find a way to be able to go under the sun; I also asked the ancestor some question, which he promptly answered after one or two rounds of torture.