Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Episode 4
I couldn't leave a question unanswered. I decided to test it immediately.
Whoosh!
Necromantic Mana Manipulation was a passive skill.
In practice, Necromantic Mana moved according to my will. Following my intent, it stretched out and settled into the three Walking Corpses.
I could feel their movements grow faster and their strength increase.
Oh... if this works out...?
Crack!
The rat bastards' necks snapped with a single blow.
The three rat-things struck by the fist technique, kick technique, and leg technique became corpses on the spot.
Of course, I pulled the spears out before killing them.
I needed spear-wielding undead.
Honestly, a spear-focused formation is more effective than one centered on fist techniques.
-What did I just see?
-lololololol wtf is this lololololol
-No, why is a corpse using fist techniques?
-What was that system window just now? A formation? Isn't that something only martial-arts-type awakened can use?
The viewers were going wild too. Everyone seemed shocked.
But I didn't have anything in particular to say to them.
If I said something like I was the Martial God in a past life, they'd totally believe me. Sure they would.
While thinking that, it suddenly occurred to me that they might actually believe it.
There's a Dimensional Tower, there are awakenings, so who's to say past lives don't exist?
I actually did reincarnate, didn't I?
There are plenty of web novels about past lives and regression, after all.
If I claimed, "I was actually the Martial God in a past life!" there would probably be people who believed it.
But then again... that could get annoying in its own way.
Keeping quiet about my past life would be the wise move.
[The next enemy is being summoned.]
And then the long-awaited fifth enemy was summoned... and surprisingly, a Gnollberd popped out.
"Oh."
A Gnollberd already? Wasn't that thing supposed to appear on the sixth trial?
-A Gnollberd appeared!
-Isn't this the fifth trial? But a Gnollberd?
-But if it's Sensei, he'll probably catch it easily.
-Will that formation work? Gnollberds are strong.
The viewers' concerns.
Indeed. A Gnollberd wasn't strong simply because it carried a halberd.
I'd seen it in plenty of videos.
That thing knew how to fight.
It was a trained warrior skilled with a halberd, and its physical abilities were outstanding too.
First of all, you had to consider its strength and stamina to be about twice that of a human.
If it hit you with its bare hands, your bones would just break.
And a creature like that could handle a halberd skillfully.
It hadn't earned its reputation as a harbinger of despair for nothing.
Anyway.
Already 221 viewers?
Where is this going viral?
If that's the case... I should show them something fun, right?
I plopped down onto the ground.
-What?
-Sensei? What are you doing?
-Why the hell did he suddenly sit down? lololol
-I've been watching since the beginning, and this guy's whole bit is seriously confusing.
While watching the viewers chatter, I said a few words.
"Welcome, all who have come to behold this sovereign. I am the Corpse-Spirit Martial Sovereign."
In my previous life I was the Martial God, but in this life I was a corpse-handler. At least I hadn't spent my life committing evil deeds like that bastard, the Corpse-Spirit Demon Lord.
So, in this life....
I would take Corpse-Spirit Martial Sovereign as my epithet.
-Damn, that's not easy to pull off.
-Old-timer, you read a lot of wuxia or what?
-Corpse-Spirit Martial Sovereign, my ass lololol.
"My corpse-ghosts are hungry. I shall show you their might."
-No, is he really going to commit to this concept?
-lololololololol for real? lololololol
While watching people burst into laughter, I moved my Necromantic Mana.
And then.
After pouring it into the corpses' bodies.
I made it circulate through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians inside the corpses.
Then.
[Creation: 'Walking Corpse' is using the Corpse-Spirit Heavenly Jiangshi Whole-Body Art.]
A message appeared.
Indeed... I only tried it as an experiment....
It actually works.
So it really was possible to circulate Necromantic Mana inside an undead's body as if it were internal energy?
But using it that way myself counted as an improper method?
Seriously... how does this judgment even work?
[Combat begins.]
-It's coming!
-Sensei, dodge!
"RAAAAGH!"
The Gnollberd roared and charged.
Facing it was one spear-wielding 'Walking Corpse.'
The other two stepped back to the left and right, and only one advanced forward.
Necromantic Mana circulated through the Corpse-Spirit Heavenly Jiangshi Whole-Body Art inside that dead body, while the spear in its hands began to move under my control through spiritual force.
Yang Family Spear Art—Wrathful Dragon Fang.
The spear seemed to tremble, then moved like a living dragon and surged forward without hesitation.
Necromantic Mana flowed into the spear like internal energy, and the thrust became the fang of an enraged dragon.
The Gnollberd saw it and, still in its charging posture, struck the ground with its tail and deliberately threw off its own balance.
As expected.
It was definitely a seasoned warrior.
Normally that would have been enough to evade, but the Yang Family Spear Art wasn't called a peerless divine art for nothing.
Crunch!
The spear bent its trajectory in midair and stabbed the Gnollberd.
However, there wasn't much Necromantic Mana, so the force generated by the Walking Corpse wasn't especially strong.
As a result, the spear couldn't fully track the Gnollberd and punch through its neck or skull; it only pierced the shoulder.
"SKREEE!"
The thing screamed.
Then it swung its halberd.
Crunch!
But its shoulder was wounded, its balance broken, and it was already half-fallen. The halberd swing had little power behind it.
It only lodged in the Walking Corpse's side; it couldn't split the body in two.
Hm. Not bad, Gnollberd.
But once things reached this point, it was already over.
Shink!
The Yang Family Spear Art unfolded again. The Gnollberd was in no position to escape, and the spear drove cleanly through its neck.
Gurgle....
While the thing foamed blood, I took its halberd.
The gnoll died on the spot and dissolved into light.
-Insane.
-The Corpse-Spirit Martial Sovereign concept was real?
-Awesome
-What did I just see?
-Huh? A corpse? Martial arts? For real?
-lololololololol wtf a bottom-tier walking corpse using spear arts lolololol
-How did he do that?
The viewers were so shocked that the chat began flying by.
And so, the fifth trial.
Clear!
* * *
"An undead is using martial arts!?"
Park Il-chim.
He was hooked. Martial arts were normally categorized as skills used by martial-world types among the awakened climbers who entered the Dimensional Tower.
They gained internal energy, and most of their skills focused on close combat. The category was quite powerful; Tingwu, the awakened China boasted of, was one of the top 24 rankers.
But.
This kind of martial art is being used by a 'Walking Corpse,' the lowest-grade undead?
How? Weren't they supposed to just rush in and fight like animals when you controlled them?
Then why can't other necromancers do that?
Countless question marks formed in his head.
And he thought he shouldn't keep this video to himself.
[An undead is slaughtering the tutorial with a peerless divine art?]
And he quickly began posting the same content on the various communities he visited.
* * *
The viewer count suddenly jumped to 1,021.
It had been in the two hundreds and was now over a thousand—roughly a fivefold jump.
Well, sure.
Even I'd be shocked to see a bottom-tier trash-mob undead utterly demolish a Gnollberd one-on-one with the Yang Family Spear Art.
Even though I did it myself, I was actually surprised.
I'd given it about half of my Necromantic Mana and had it circulate that power, and the result had been astonishing.
By the standards of my past-life martial-world experience, the Necromantic Mana I'd just infused amounted to roughly one year's worth of internal energy.
Even so, internal energy is internal energy.
The undead displayed powerful martial force.
As I grew, I'd be able to pour even more Necromantic Mana into my undead... so this seemed very useful.
And at this point, there was one more thing to think about.
Originally, internal energy is created by communicating with the natural world through breathing, drawing in energy, and gathering it in the dantian.
If so.
What would happen if I kept pouring my Necromantic Mana into the dantian of an undead I created?
I'd confirmed that Necromantic Mana could function like a kind of internal true qi exclusive to undead.
Then could I make it gather permanently in the dantian?
Then this would be.
An undead with internal energy!
Just like a Jiangshi.
The reason I was called the Martial God in my past life wasn't simply because I was strong, but because I had collected and memorized an enormous amount of martial arts through various means.
I'm well-versed in these theoretical aspects too.
Based on my experience and knowledge.
I had a feeling this could work.
Jiangshi also store energy inside their bodies through various spells and grand rituals.
The Jiangshi Art was developed to apply that same kind of Jiangshi power to humans.
So I just need to use the Jiangshi Art in reverse on undead.
Then they'll possess internal energy like Jiangshi.
Hm. How astonishing!
But my Necromantic Mana recovered automatically. Normally, if an awakened person exhausted all of their mana, it took about seven days to recover completely.
Skills, items, or special locations that aided mana recovery could speed that up.
But I'd heard those were expensive or required a fortuitous encounter to obtain.
Some GodTuber once gained popularity by broadcasting that the empty lot he bought had a dragon vein and was good for mana recovery, and it turned into a real-estate jackpot.
In other words, it worked like this.
The Necromantic Mana I'd just infused was roughly equivalent to one year's worth of internal energy.
If I kept pouring Necromantic Mana into one undead and converted it into internal energy, I could build up roughly one year's worth of cultivation every seven days.
Four weeks would mean four years of cultivation.
Sixty weeks would mean sixty years of cultivation.
A year was roughly fifty-two weeks... so in a little over a year, an undead could accumulate sixty years' worth of cultivation.
That's insane.
Even among the demonic peerless arts I knew, very few could build internal energy this fast.
And every one of those arts came with lethal side effects.
Give me about five years, and I'd have an undead with two hundred forty to three hundred years' worth of cultivation. Just like that!
Huh... what the hell was this?
[The next enemy is being summoned.]
While I was lost in thought....
The sixth enemy appeared.
Three Gnollberds.
Is this difficulty for real?
The fortunate thing was that all my Necromantic Mana had recovered, and all the undead's wounds had recovered too.
They said the tower restored your condition to normal before each trial. So that really was true.
[Combat begins.]
I was still sitting cross-legged.
The three Gnollberds charged.
My three undead met them.