Skeleton Wizard

Skeleton Wizard.

A magic-type undead whose crafting method I had secured before challenging the Tower of Chaos.

"I got lucky with this one."

Magic firepower had always been my weak point. Tigris, who filled the heavy cavalry role, came in at B+. Even the Armed Zombie Strengthened Soldiers rated C+. The Skeleton Mage, by contrast, was stuck at D-rank. Even with the bonuses from Undead Maker, the [00] achievement, and Corpse Processing, its specs lagged far ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠behind.

"And Dark Hoods cost a fortune apiece."

The reagents, byproducts, and raw materials that went into making one were staggering. Tigris ran about fifty million won. A Dark Hood's materials alone pushed past four hundred million. The difficulty was brutal, too. Ghostly afterimage materials couldn't even be touched—you had to force mana into them just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to work them. The quality never quite matched the price tag, so I had stopped after making the bare minimum.

"Skeleton Wizards, though… those I can work with."

Undead that used bone as their medium. Skeletons were something I had mass-produced back in my E-rank days. The rank was far higher now, so the process was more complex—but that was fine. Bone, at least, I could hold in my hands.

A catalyst that ran thirty million won apiece. I had no idea how something the size of a chick's tear could cost that much. I seated five pieces of Seven-Night Obsidian into both shoulders, the chest, and both knees.

"Even that alone costs a fair bit, does it not?"

"That's the end of the money sink."

Bones from a mage-type monster. Seven-Night Obsidian. With just those two things, I could make a Skeleton Wizard.

"The production cost is less than half of a Dark Hood's!"

"In exchange, the labor intensity goes way up."

I had to pack spirit circuits densely into both the bones and the Seven-Night Obsidian.

Wow. My eyes were going to fall out of my head.

If a circuit sat even a fraction off, crack!—immediate short. That whole section would shatter into powder with a dry crunch.

"Hah."

Thankfully, the item effect could restore the damage. Whew. Lucky break. If the Ring of Life hadn't worked, I would have had to throw the pieces back into the forge and start over.

【Master. Sorry.】

Roan's healing spells did nothing. Bone itself wasn't a valid target for blessing magic.

"You've got nothing to apologize for. You're doing more than enough."

【……!】

The blue light flickering over his slack pupils deepened a shade.

"This is pretty hard."

"Please drink some water while you work."

Ingrid stepped in beside me and wiped the sweat from my face with a handkerchief.

"Gah! What do you think you're doing, mage?!"

"Our Master is working himself to the bone, and you're just standing there sucking your thumb?"

"If your meddling shatters our lord's concentration, what then?!"

"He hasn't said a word about it. You're fine, right, Master?"

I let both retainers' bickering slide in one ear and out the other. My only concern was packing those circuits as tightly as possible. Not a single millimeter of error allowed.

I ignored even the system messages and kept opening spirit circuits. I lost all track of time sunk into the work—until, at last, there were no more circuits left to engrave.

"Uwaaaah."

My neck was killing me. Hours hunched over had left everything from my neck to my shoulders to my arms screaming.

"My lord. Allow me to loosen those knotted muscles."

Huh?

The way he was flexing his fingers looked exactly like a man about to strangle me.

"It is a massage art handed down through the Gale Knight Order."

"Not an assassination technique?"

"Gah! Ambush is a knight's disgrace!"

"I'll take the thought for the deed."

The stone-faced offer to give me a massage was somehow enough to make the stiffness ease just by looking at it. If it didn't, I was pretty sure I would die.

"Then please test it already, Master!"

Ingrid's cheeks had gone faintly pink. With a power boost for the Witch Corps sitting right in front of her, she had every right to be worked up. I was a little excited myself, honestly.

"Open your eyes."

Mana began to revolve around the five pieces of Seven-Night Obsidian. The densely packed spirit circuits held firm under the flow of power.

"Grrk! Loyalty… to Master!"

Specs stronger than even a Dark Hood! It had inherited every spell Ingrid had researched so painstakingly. On top of that, skills like Burst Flare and Ice Pillar came attached as abilities the Skeleton Wizard itself possessed.

"Eheh. Ehehehe!"

Success. It was a success!

"I believed in you, my lord. I offer my most sincere congratulations!"

"To succeed at such delicate work on the first try… as expected of you, Master!"

【You make my body next, yes?】

【Stupid. Thief.】

My eyes felt ready to fall out after so long focusing, but the retainers' congratulations kept making my cheeks twitch.

【Youngest! You know what you want too, don't you, sir?!】

【…….】

【There he goes again, not talking, sir!】

"Thief. Roan can only say five characters a minute."

"Forgetting is only natural. He is a thief, after all."

【My lords. This is a duel!】

"Are you serious? My blade knows no mercy."

【Hiiiiiiek!】

While the retainers bickered, I projected Skeleton Wizard Unit One through Corpse Processing.

Hmm. Hmmmmm.

"Still not enough."

"Not enough? I fail to grasp your meaning."

"The Skeleton Wizard's completion rate. I can push it higher."

Using the data generated through analysis via Corpse Processing as a foundation, I examined the finished Skeleton Wizard and found quite a few rough edges. After patching those for Unit Two, I pushed the mana stat into the 2,300 range. The third Skeleton Wizard I built scraped up against 2,500 mana.

"The feedback is remarkably swift."

"It's a matter of technique with the spirit circuit engraving."

I had to carve dozens of spirit circuits into surfaces less than ten centimeters across. Even a slight miss degraded mana handling—which was exactly why Units One and Three had such different specs.

"Pushing the specs any higher than this seems unrealistic."

"My lord. This undead requires no mana fold-forging?"

"A Skeleton Wizard isn't going to be fighting in melee."

Mana fold-forging wasn't some universal master key that improved every process. It meant heating bone, folding it, and hammering it down while forcing mana in for reinforcement. That approach granted extra options when crafting bone weapons or undead—but it had limits.

"If you fold it and the shape deforms, engraving the spirit circuits gets that much harder."

"Hoho. Expecting an iron-headed oaf to understand delicate work might be asking too much."

"Gah!"

To be honest, I had learned something myself this time. I had always assumed bone metallurgy was the core of undead enhancement. With Skeleton Wizards, it was the opposite. The same would probably hold for other undead. Warrior-types benefited from techniques like mana fold-forging to shore up durability and physical ability. Delicate ones like Skeleton Wizards were better remodeled in their pure state. That was why experience mattered.

"Last, let's try using this."

A flame-shaped stone. I closed my hand around the soul stone that held Old Man Alfons's po soul.

I gently parted the Skeleton Wizard's ribcage. Thanks to the active skill, the bones slid left and right without resistance. The moment I seated the soul stone in the empty heart cavity—

Wooooom!

The soul stone slowly vaporized and soaked into every part of the bone.

"When you made the Armed Zombie Warriors, did you not seat the stone first and then craft?"

"Post-processing is fine too."

It hadn't been intentional, but when I crafted the Armed Zombie Warriors, the fractured soul stones had done me a lot of good—they had kept the body from collapsing under imperfect technique. This time was different. I knew the Skeleton Wizard crafting method cold.

"Confirming a higher completion rate first and then using it isn't too late."

"As expected of my lord—you had it all planned!"

"As if a blockhead like you and Master could be the same."

"Hahah. Truly a man worth following."

Fractured soul stones had only boosted stats by about ten to twenty percent. The soul stones I made with my own hands were overwhelmingly more efficient by comparison.

The Cursed Gravestone was said to be able to alter a soul stone's nature. The ones made in the Tower Master's office should be convertible too. Which meant I didn't have to limit the enhancement to Skeleton Wizards. Convert them toward melee traits, slot them into Draco or Tigris, and those two would be flying around on bonus stats.

Oh. That was actually a pretty good idea.

I was still painting rosy pictures in my head when an additional message appeared.

Eh. Did I mishear that?

"You've got to be kidding me."

Why was this spell being added?! It was a skill I couldn't possibly fail to recognize. I had seen it several times during the exchange match with Emilia, after all. Half-suspecting the answer, I looked at Ingrid.

"Master? Is something the matter?"

"Can you use light-attribute magic too?"

"The one attribute the Witch of the Solar Eclipse cannot handle is light."

Huh. That dropped the odds of Ingrid developing it as a surprise down to zero. It also hadn't been on the skill list when I checked just a moment ago. Which meant—

"Old Man Alfons's experience got packed into the soul stone."

Jackpot. This was… seriously. Soul stone crafting was a complete jackpot of a skill!

I shared what I had just confirmed with the retainers, and every one of them looked stunned.

"I never imagined that 'containing a trace of the soul' meant something like this."

"A way for Master to grow even stronger has opened up!"

【Just scrape more po off elite hunters, right, sir?!】

"That's not realistic."

The Clock Tower Master's office. A place Old Man Alfons had occupied for decades. Even that space had run dry of po after I made twenty-five soul stones. Finding skilled hunters in the first place was work enough. Whether they would cooperate was unclear, and the number of soul stones I could produce wouldn't be large either.

"I'll have to use them as sparingly as possible."

Whether I would ever get into another space like the Clock Tower Master's office again… that wouldn't be easy. I would reinforce only the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠five Skeleton ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wizards assigned to Ingrid with soul stones, and store the rest in the Death Blacksmith.

"I've got the general feel for it, so shall we move on to the next job?"

"Maaasteeer. Weren't you reinforcing the Witch Corps?"

"Don't put on airs, mage."

"I am going to do it. There's just something I want to examine first."

The remains of a Death Knight and a Lich. Inside the Tower of Chaos they had been under penalties and couldn't show their true strength. That didn't mean the remains themselves had dropped in grade. Specs identical to the originals! Analyzing those two undead might yield entirely new inspiration.

I was holding back a grin when—

"Ah. Training time is over."

"The support team?"

Come on. I had agreed to see those guys tomorrow morning.

"It is already morning."

Huh? What had I done that could possibly make it morning already? He had to be joking. Chuckling lightly, I glanced at the clock set up in the Death Blacksmith.

Oh. It was real.

I had pulled an all-nighter making Skeleton Wizards?