Beginning of the Tutorial(PD inc. 3)
Initializing the system for the first time...
Searching for the right planet...
Found...
Planet Diastizo
Level of difficulty... very easy.
Life limit...to be determined
Species... Undead
User limit...to be determined
Waiting for confirmation...
...
Confirmation given by admin...
Loading the tutorial...
Tutorial initiation...
"Good luck boy".
xxx
"Where am I?" groaned Samuel as he woke up in complete darkness, without any feeling or awareness of his body.
The doctor did not panic, as most people in his situation would have done, but calmly began to analyze the situation he found himself in.
As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he looked around him in the hope of finding out something quickly.
"I'm in a cave of some kind.., no..., in something that is only supposed to resemble a cave "Whispered Samuel curious about the room he was in.
"It's too unnatural, perfectly symmetrical, hah... whoever said that the perfect circle doesn't exist now would probably catch his head in surprise if he saw it."
"It's impossible, that it could have been made by the power of human hands, but if I'm in another world now, my old knowledge of building will be of no use to me." Without thinking, he began to search the cave in complete darkness.
"I remember learning about these stalactites and stalagmites in geography class." He spoke further as he looked at the protruding rocks on the ceiling and floor of the 'cave'. "Or maybe it was nature lessons...ahh...., it doesn't matter now"
Samuel flicked his eyes around the cave in search of something more interesting.
"The door? I don't remember such a thing occurring underground." He stated when he saw a large not very solid wooden door that seemed to be rotting from the dampness. As he continued to search the cave, he found another door, the same as the first one, but located on the opposite side of the dome he was now in.
"A cave that could be a building, an underground, and a door..." Samuel began to quickly analyze the information he had gathered. "It doesn't tell me much but the only thing that comes to mind when I put all the parts together is.... an old abandoned dwarven mine."
"It might fit if I were in a fantasy world... if I were there..."
"One door in front of me and one door behind me, just which one to choose now?"
...
Samuel crouched down and began to touch the cold floor, which seemed strange to him. It was paved with black slabs made of pebbles, each slab perfectly symmetrical and placed one next to the other.
"Is this supposed to be some kind of pattern?" Samuel stated as he got up from his knees. The slabs were arranged in some kind of image, which when viewed from a distance gave Samuel strange associations. "Was someone conducting some kind of ritual here?"
The former doctor determinedly walked towards that door which was closer, but as soon as he was a step away from it something changed in the room.
Torches, which Samuel had not noticed before began to burn with blue fire each hung on the walls of the 'cave' at perfect intervals from each other as if measured by a ruler.
"Yes, now I know for sure that this is someone's work, the torches didn't hang here by themselves".
"But I have to say I like the grim and rough interior design, it must have been done by a perfectionist like me," thought Samuel admiring the craftsmanship now in its entirety.
"Once I have free time and get out of here I need to get myself something similar," he thought trying to remember as much as he could of what he was seeing now.
"And just why am I here? He asked in his mind to himself.
...
"Ah, I just remembered I 'joined' some corporation and I was talking to this strange guy."
"What did he say at the end," He asked breaking the silence in the room again. And when he remembered after a while, he repeated without thinking the word that the mysterious man had told him to say.
"System"
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Name: Samuel Malak
Access level: 1
Current Species: Undead (Half Lich)
Current Skills: Resurrection of a Minor Undead , Create a Minor Undead ,Magic ???
Division: Destroyers of planets
Difficulty of the current mission: Very Easy
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...
"Wait, am I undead?"
Then a puzzled Samuel began to look slowly at his new 'body', unfortunately, he had no mirror and could not see his new figure in all its glory.
His arms and legs had lost their familiar skin and hard-worked muscles, leaving only white bones not even connected by tendons.
"Fascinating" He whispered and the green flames that he had instead of eyes flamed even brighter than before. Samul tried to touch his hands with his other hand to see if he could feel anything. He did not feel any warmth at all when he touched his hands, but only a sharp and unrelenting chill, just like when he touched the floor.
The undead began to explore other parts of his body, starting with the little toe in his foot and ending with his skull where his brain should have been if he had one.
"Logically I shouldn't be able to see or hear anything," said Samuel as he began to touch his skull to see if there was anything different about it from a human skull. Finding no outgrowths, cracks, or other differences in the skull, or at least to his anatomic knowledge, Samuel decided to go against the intuition of his formerly alive body.
Slowly he began to insert his bony fingers into the eye sockets, but finding nothing, withdrew them as if burnt. Then he did the same with his ears and nose. "Nothing either", he thought, but expect such an answer.
His body consisted of nothing but bones, maybe not only bones, as he found out when he started to examine the only part of his body he did not know yet, his insides.
Where his heart used to be, there was now something else, a round rough ball, strange to the touch. Which, unlike the other parts of his body, emitted an enjoyable warmth.
"Pleasant" Samuel muttered like a cat as he touched the only place from which he felt any sensation.
Every time he touched the orb it emitted a warmth spreading across his chest.
His undead instincts, if there were any at all, told him to feel more of this pleasure, and without thinking any longer he frantically obeyed them squeezing the orb again and again with each touch getting faster and faster. And then, more and more excited by chance, he squeezed the rough ball harder than he would have liked, regretting his action immediately afterward.
"Aaaaaaaaaaa "He shouted but that was all he managed to cough out. Samuel felt pain, unimaginable pain that he had never felt before even as he tried to conduct surgery on himself, the pain was incomparable to any of the suffering of his body. Therefore, subconsciously he knew that this was the pain of his soul.
"I think I've found my weakness," he managed to howl before passing out promising himself that he would never make that mistake again.
xxxx
Samuel awoke after an unknown amount of time lying on the floor, but he could not examine how much time had passed since he lost consciousness.
He could not measure time with anything, he had no view outside, and he did not know if it was now day or night. And the torches, glowing blue, still did not burn down, left in the same not-used state.
"Is that dust?" thought a puzzled Samuel as he lay quietly on the floor, everything looked the same as he had pawned it before passing out.
Trying to forget the unpleasant incident, the undead, once again called up the system in search of important information, before setting off in search of an exit. This time using a different name to see if the system would also respond.
"Half Lich, What does that mean?" I remembered that the Lich had a sort of phylactery, an object in which he kept his soul, and usually kept it in a place that was a safe and hidden place, at a great distance from where he was. Such places were usually inaccessible to anyone else and heavily protected by the lich's numerous undead servants.
"Does this mean that since I am a Half-Lich I am missing something to the full version, just what?"
"Could it be that this rough ball in my chest, my new heart is my phylactery?"
"That would explain why I feel the heat from it, now another question comes to mind. Am I missing something else? "
"..."
"Is there any way I can change it now?" said Samuel, and then with a certain movement, he put his hand under his ribs, but having learned from his earlier soul-ache, he did it more gently this time, touching the levitating ball in an attempt to pull it out slowly, ignoring his undead instincts.
"I'm about to find out," He thought before in one swift motion he tried to pull it out.
"Damn it won't move" cursed Samuel clenching his jaw.
"It won't do any good, I don't think I can hack the system now though, it's a shame," He thought once he stopped making his soul ache.
Samuel, unconcerned by his earlier failure, continued looking at the screen.
"Let's see, it says here I have some skills let's start with the first one on the left 'Resurrection a minor undead'".
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Resurrection of a minor undead
Allows to revive a corpse lying nearby to summon an undead of a lower tier than the caster.
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'Well let's see, I can reanimate a corpse but that's to be expected from the necromancer I am now. Surprisingly the undeads are divided into tiers, now the question is, which tier do I belong to?''Samuel pondered deeply. ''First, second or third or perhaps even they are not divided into numbers''.
"Luckily I know 'who' can know that".
"TIERS?" uttered Samuel waiting to see a message from the SYSTEM, unfortunately for him, nothing happened.
"UNDEAD TIERS?" He asked again, but further nothing changed.
"..."
"Damn it's not as easy as I thought it would be, I'll probably have to be more precise about what I say to the system in the future and for now I have to find this information myself" Undead whispered quietly.
Not wanting to compromise himself further he went back to reviewing his skills.
"Create a Minor Undead!" - Samuel exclaimed, expecting an answer. This time, however, the blue screen came up.
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Create a Minor Undead
Allows to create an undead subject only to the, will of the caster using mana. The more mana put in, the stronger the undead.
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"Mana?" He whisper surprised when he read some of the first words that popped up on the screen.
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Mana : 1000/1000
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...
"I am undead, so I operate through mana, but whose mana? My mana, the mana of the corporation I now work for, or maybe the mana is in the air and acts as oxygen for the living and I just can't see it?" wondered Samuel.
...
"Wait, wait what does that mean 'subject only to the, will of the caster? Shouted the undead when he realized a small understatement in the earlier message.
"So if I revive a corpse using this earlier skill then the revived person can rebel against me?"
"Then why would I use this skill after all the other one is much better. Who would normally choose boundlessly obedient undead over possible rebels?"
"Wait, me for example, I would be able to do it, maybe I will go crazy in the future out of boredom and start doing it, you never know".
"Note to self, read the system message descriptions more carefully, every word can be important, so don't skip even one character because you never know what you might find in it"
...
"Fuck..Maybe I'm wrong and I'm just oversensitive and slightly paranoid, but I have to be careful just in case"
"Just why do I get the weird feeling that this skill is going to backfire on me?" Samuel thought, predicting the distant future.
"..."
"Ok, just what is this last skill 'Magic ???? what does it even mean?"
"Magic"
...
"Choose Magic!"
...
Samuel tried to shout all the words related to this that came to mind, but nothing was working, the system was not responding.
"I'll deal with that later, what do I have left?"
"Ahhh..Access Level"
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Access Level
????????????????
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"Wow, I have learned a lot, thanks System" said the thinking undead' with undisguised irony.
"What else can I learn?... I know maybe Mission?"
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Mission
Destroy a Planet or Kill All Living Thinking Beings
Time : Unlimited?
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"Maybe something more particular?" said Samuel hopefully to the System.
This time, however, the System exceptionally listened to him when the undead said more than one specific word.
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Planet: Diastizo
Difficulty level: very easy
Type of Destruction: Undead Catastrophe
Restriction: ???
Lives limit ???
Percentage of Mission Completion: 0%
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"Super maybe we can finally get to something what do you say?" Asked the lone and mad skeleton to the levitating blue screen. Unfortunately for Samuel, the system did not answer him with human words and nothing happened after that.
"..."
And immediately afterward another screen appeared, this time uncalled for by Samuel.
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Choose Starting Magic
Ice Magic
Bone Magic
Poison Magic
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"And that's an interesting choice, now the question is whether I will get the skills, like I have now, or maybe I will be able to shape the chosen element myself as I wish, with the only limitation being the amount of mana. Or maybe a little of each?" pondered Samuel about the difficult choice that could determine his survival in the new world.