7 Clearing the path.
The four armored skeletons surrounded Marcus. There were two skeletons on his left, one with a long sword and one with a spear.
While the other two were on his right. One was equipped with metal plate armor along with a huge battle-ax, and the other wielded two short swords.
Immediately, Marcus used analysis on his opponents.
'Three level 10 and one level 15... Looks like this is going to be a little harder than I thought.'
*Bang! Bang!*
After what seemed like an eternity, Marcus fired two missiles that hit the skeletons to his right straight in the skull. But then the skeleton soldier to his left charged at him and swung his sword.
*Clang!*
Marcus managed to block the attack and both swords clashed with a thunderous sound.
*Bang!*
Marcus deflected the skeleton's sword and fired another energy missile at point-blank range. The skeleton soldier was pushed by the force of the projectile and ended up crashing into the wall.
Then the spear-wielding skeleton stabbed towards Marcus' head. But when the tip of the spear was only 5 centimeters from the skull, it hit something hard in the air and bounced off.
*Crack!*
The metal tip of the spear fractured on impact.
At that moment, Marcus grabbed the enemy's weapon by the end and swung his sword, cutting the spear in half.
Without his weapon, the skeleton soldier was helpless and could do nothing when his adversary placed his hand on his face and fired another energy missile.
*Bang!*
The skeleton's skull exploded scattering bone splinters through the air and his body eventually collapsed.
After killing the skeleton, Marcus jumped backward evading the blow of the skeleton's huge battle-ax to his right.
*Clash!*
The ax hit the ground with a deafening noise creating multiple cracks in the ground.
'Holy Crap! ....If that thing hits me even once... Even if I use the energy shield I'm dead.'
Marcus knew that in terms of physical stats he was far inferior to any of the skeleton soldiers and the only reason he could defeat them so easily was that he could use some spells. But if his MP ran out before he could defeat his opponents he would be screwed.
Marcus checked his mana pool and realized that he only had a little over half of it left.
Aside from [Energy Missile], Marcus had been using two other energy element spells.
One was [Energy Shield] which created a barrier that blocked enemy attacks to a certain extent, and the other was [Self-Reinforcement] which enhanced the user's physical capabilities.
But unlike [Energy Missile] which had a fixed expenditure, the other two spells consumed MP constantly and although the battle had only started about fifteen seconds ago, they had already consumed over 100 MP.
Originally the [Energy Shield] was to be activated only before receiving an attack. But since Marcus was a noob as far as magic or combat was concerned, he had no choice but to keep the shield activated at all times.
Even if Marcus had unlimited stamina, he was dependent on magic to win the fight. If the battle dragged on any longer than necessary, he would run out of MP and would have no choice but to run away again.
*Bang!*
Marcus fired another energy missile.
The skeleton soldier blocked it with his huge ax, recoiling from the impact. But when Marcus was about to fire again, the skeleton using two short swords attacked him.
The skeleton with two swords and the skeleton with the ax had taken a direct hit from Marcus at the start of the fight that partially shattered their skulls, but even if their heads were cracked or had a hole in them they could still move without any difficulty.
*Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!*
The swords clashed generating sparks from the friction.
Marcus was in trouble, the other two skeletons had already recovered from the previous attacks and charged towards him.
*Clang! Bang!*
Marcus deflected the skeleton soldier's attacks and shot him again. The short-sworded skeleton was pushed back and collided with the single-sworded skeleton.
*Bang! Bang!*
Two more energy projectiles were fired.
*Boom!*
The energy missiles collided at the same time and exploded when they hit both skeletons destroying them and scattering their bones all over the room.
But at that instant, the last remaining skeleton soldier attacked. Marcus jumped backward to evade the ax blow, but...
*Crash! Slash!*
The ax not only destroyed the energy shield as if it was made of glass but also severed Marcus' left arm which flew to the other side of the room.
'YOU'RE KIDDING ME! THAT ARM WASN'T EVEN FIVE HOURS OLD!!!'
Marcus only had 9 MP left so he could no longer cast another energy missile and could not generate another [Energy Shield] either. As for the [Self-Reinforcement] spell, he could only maintain it for another 30 seconds more.
In a normal situation, Marcus would run away, wait for his mana to recover, and try again. But right now he was ... Too angry to run away!
'You know what... F**K YOU!!'
Marcus grabbed his sword and threw it with all his might like a boomerang. The sword embedded itself in the ax handle, almost cutting it in two. But the attack was strong enough to make the skeleton soldier stagger.
Marcus closed his fist, charged towards his opponent, jumped up, and with all his might punched the skeleton soldier in the face.
*Crack!*
The blow was so hard that it fractured the skeleton soldier's skull, making him fall to the ground. The skeleton tried to stand up again, but Marcus grabbed his head and smashed it against the floor destroying it as if it were an old china plate.
....
{You gained 3,751 xp}
....
{You leveled up}
....
{You gained 17 stat points}
....
'Ooh!.... The amount of points increased. Is it because of the evolution or is it because of the update?.... I wonder.'
Marcus immediately tried to distribute his free stat points, but the result was the same as before. But when he tried to distribute them in intelligence, his MP reached 777.
As to why this happened, Marcus assumed that since intelligence didn't count as a physical stat, it could be increased with system points without any problem.
After a moment, Marcus began to check the corpses of the five skeleton soldiers, but apart from the level 15 skeleton armor, there was nothing worthwhile. The rest of the equipment had been destroyed in the battle.
Since Marcus found nothing, he decided to try his luck in the corridor where the skeletons had come from.
The corridor turned out to be the same as before, long, dark, and ten rooms of modest size on each side. The same went for the bedrooms, a single bed, a closet, and a chest at the foot of the bed.
The result was not the best either.
After searching for an hour, Marcus had only found a few coins, gems, precious stones, jewelry, and pendants, but none of them were magical or useful for combat.
Once he finished checking the rooms he put everything he found in the inventory and returned to the largest room.
Marcus had only three options. Option one, open the door to the right and face fourteen other unknown undead monsters. Open the door opposite and see what he encountered and option three, go back the way he had come and explore the hole made by the necrophagous worms.
****
"...."
'Okay Willson, let's go through the front door.'
Marcus spent about 10 hours with nothing to do (except talk to Wilson), before finally deciding on option two. Although he had made his decision in less than 20 minutes, he preferred to wait for his MP to fully regenerate before doing anything.
Marcus could certainly use magic, but he did not know any technique for absorbing rehi from the environment and regaining his Mana. He couldn't even understand how he was using spells in the first place if that was supposed to require having a heart and a brain to store rehi in.
"...."
'Yeah, I didn't forget about that, Wilson. Sigh... I hope this works.'
Marcus was sitting on the floor and in front of him was a skeletal forearm. This was the left forearm that the skeleton soldier had cut off in the fight a few hours ago.
After he finished looting all the rooms in the place, Marcus had been searching and collecting all the body parts he lost in the fight. Fortunately, the cut was pretty clean and the arm was mostly intact.
In the hours that Marcus had waited for his MP to fully recover, he had come up with a way to recover the arm and HP he had lost during the previous confrontation.
When Marcus evolved and gained the ability to use energy element magic, he had also gained the ability [Necrotic Manipulation]. This ability allowed the user to imbue spells with corrupted energy which was the essence of the undead.
However, since all the monsters Marcus had encountered so far were immune to necrotic energy he never thought of using it.
But as an undead expert, Marcus remembered that in the fantasy stories he read on Earth, there were necromancer wizards capable of using that negative energy not only to summon and create undead but also to strengthen and even heal them.
Based on this information, Marcus hoped that by casting [Self-Reinforcement] along with [Necrotic Manipulation] he could regenerate his HP and if he was lucky, maybe he could get his left arm back.
Marcus took his forearm, placed it where it had been cut, and cast the spell imbued with necrotic energy. Immediately the cracks in the arm began to heal and in less than two minutes it was completely healed.
Marcus took his left palm and repeated the same process until it was attached to his arm and did the same with all his fingers. All this had taken almost half an hour, but when he was done both his arm and his HP were back to normal.
Marcus made some movements with his arm to check that it was completely healed. Once that was done, he put Wilson in the inventory, unsheathed his sword, and once he was fully prepared, he opened the door.
****
'JESUS CHRIST!'
The door opposite was connected to a long corridor a little wider than the previous ones and at the end of it was a double door made of wood.
When he got there, Marcus didn't even have to use his [Energy Sense] to know what was on the other side, as the door was so worn to the point of being full of holes through which the room on the other side could be seen.
The door was the entrance to what appeared to be some kind of common room or dining room, with some fairly long tables, some simply designed chairs, and other furniture. But the real reason Marcus was impressed was that the place was filled with skeletons.
Immediately Marcus used his analysis on all the skeletons he could see and was calmed by the realization that they were all between levels 1 and 9, which meant that none of them were superior monsters. Also, only a few of them were armed.
Marcus took a moment to think about it. His options were to go back and face the fourteen unknown undead or fight a horde of common skeletons.
Marcus immediately cast [Self-reinforce], pulled another sword from his inventory, kicked in the dining-room door, and charged straight at the skeletons.
*Slash!*
Marcus swung his swords and instantly three skeletons were cut in half. The other skeletons noticed his presence and immediately ran to attack him.
'Hahaha... Hundreds of you against me alone! It doesn't seem fair but who the f**k cares?'
*Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!*
Marcus continued to slash at anyone who got in his way.
Bone splinters, fractured skulls, ribs, and broken swords flew across the room as Marcus continued to attack mercilessly.
Fortunately, the skeletons were free of blood and organs, otherwise, the room would have changed color within minutes of the battle starts.
****
....
{You gained 2,688 XP}
....
{You leveled up}
....
{You gained 17 stat points.}
....
Twelve minutes later, Marcus' swords were nearly destroyed, his armor had multiple cuts and dents, and the floor of the room was littered with broken bones and weapons.
