Saintess Summons Skeletons

“They just left us alone in Valeure’s house,'' Alith remarked.

“It’s not like we would try to steal anything anyway. I’m going out to summon Pareth first, anything you need to do before we go?”

“I need my weapons repaired, the mithril got a bit dented and the handles are in bad shape. Shouldn’t take long, besides that it’s all good. Dopple doesn’t need any repair. I was looking forward to getting back to some alchemy but that can wait until we come back from the pink place.”

“Oh, right, before we go, didn’t your hero's blessing have an evolution every 100 levels? I’m kind of curious about what you got this time.”

“Ah, well. It’s nothing much, just another special passive skill to put next to the previous one, let me bring them both up.”

[Heir of fire] : Apply a stack of ‘Devouring fire’ on target for every successful melee attack, up to 100 stacks.

(An attack needs to deal at least 1 health point of damage to be successful)

Devouring fire lasts for 3 seconds, renewed upon applying a new stack, and augments damage received from all physical attacks by 10%.

[From the ashes] : Upon killing an enemy of level equal or superior to yours, regenerate 1% Health and Stamina for every five stacks of ‘Devouring fire’ on them.

While directly inside fire or similarly hot environments, regenerate 1% Health per second and gain a temporary increase of 20% in all physical stats except health.

“Woah. You’re really shaping up to be a fire mage’s worst nightmare.”

“Mornn already got a taste of that even before I got this new passive. I wonder what I’ll get at level 300.”

…

“So this is what the whole thing looks like, not bad, it’s really like some sort of armored bear.”

Pareth moved around, trying to adjust to his new form.

“Do you like it? That should be easier to fight with than the Ogre’s tall body.”

Pareth didn’t answer but he stopped moving to bow to Sofia, which was no longer too surprising at this point. That was one of the only ways Pareth seemed to be willing to communicate through, either way Sofia was happy to see it.

His new skeleton was exactly as Richard had described it, like an armored, three-eyed bear-like creature with large bones and long scary claws. The shape of the skull was the weirdest part to Sofia, who felt that it looked like someone had combined a bear’s skull and a giant prawn’s head.

I haven’t looked at his stats at all until now, he should have gotten a bonus from the level up and even more from the Boneplate Mauleur skeleton. I even took the time to engrave it with Zerei’s rituals and everything this time, the air-steps are really a must-have.

Let’s see without the [Sanctified grounds] first.

Name : Pareth Level : 200

Health : 980 400 / 980 400

Stamina : 366 800 / 366 800

Mana : 40 000 / 40 000

“Hmm, so your stats with no bonus right now are almost as much as they were during the trial with the [Sanctified grounds]...”

I’m a bit desensitized to big numbers because I know of the Master’s Health pool now, but that’s still a lot for our current level. I’d say the trade with Richard was worth it, I don’t even know if I could find anything better for the same size range. If I want heavier now, I’ll have to turn to bigger beasts…

“Also, you have forty thousand Mana now? I guess the base stats must have doubled from the filter, not too bad. You can activate the skill now.”

Name : Pareth Level : 200

Health : 2 862 768 / 2 862 768

Stamina : 1 071 056 / 1 071 056

Mana : 39 900 / 40 000

Now these are real numbers. Good. Great.

Hmm, right I can make two blessed constructs with [Bone dominus] now, it leveled up during the fight against Victory.

The shield was a fine defensive construct but the fact that I had to have it out for its effects to work was inconvenient. I could make something like a breastplate for added protection? But wearing that all the time would get tiring too. Guess I’ll just make another ring, ten fingers after all, I can still fit many more.

And then I’ll make something for Pareth to wear, so he’ll always have it active even in storage. Having him carry a shield isn’t great either since he uses a two-handed sword most of the time.

Hmm.

“Hey, you know what, I’ll make you a crown like mine. You deserve one too.”

Sofia admired her work, she had to slightly alter the design to fit Pareth’s current weirdly shaped skull but the front of the crown at least looked similar, except that it was made of blessed bones.

“My status page is really looking crazy…”

Name : Sofia Aphenoreth

Age : 21

Class : [Saintomancer]

Level : 200

Health : 29 600 / 29 600

Stamina : 29 699 / 29 699

Mana : 314 512 / 319 100

Main Specialization : [Eclipse Skeleton]

Alteration chance : 0%

Secondary Specialization : [Heat Death]

Active Skills (6 / 8)

[Spine of the Black Sun] - Level 200

[Heal Undead] - Level 71

[Summon Blood] - Level 200

[Maiden Banshee] - Level 200 (Lv.200)

[Graveyard of the righteous] - Level 200

[False immortality] - Level 3

Passive Skills (6 / 8)

[Blessing of the Deep] - (2/4)

[Vakariazrehafin of Sorrow]

[Exalted Exoskeleton]

[Venerable physique of the primeval void] - Doors of the Light forging realm

[Bone dominus] - Level 2

[Erredian Rot]

Classless Skills (8 / 9)

[Fast reading] - Level 58

[Way of the Fool] - Level 22

[Sprint] - Level 38

[Identify] - Level 2

[Mana manipulation]

[Evasion] - Level 32

[Radiance] - Level 26

[Quintessential]

Special Skills (1)

[The Book of Skeletons]

Summoned heroes (3 / 4)

Lv.200 Pareth (Holy Boneplate Mauler Eclipse Skeleton) Lv.200 Alith (Alith) Lv.200 Book of Skeletons (Book)

[Mark of Aphenoreth]

Available Active Skills :

[ command] : soul that none can resist. [Restore ] : Infuse the target with mana to [Ritual skulls of ] : ERROR [ penumbra] : ERROR

Available Passive Skills :

[Runic ] : You are one with the runes of

 

Oh, right, I didn’t end up asking Sen about this, did I… Well, whatever, I’m almost certain it works how I think it does, and even if it didn’t, it’s still not bad.

You have acquired the Classless skill : ‘One with Suffering’

There we go. Might as well do this too, I’ll just have to alter it myself later.

[Class Skill level up point is being used on ‘Heal Undead’, are you sure?]

[Class Skill level up point has been used]

‘[Heal Undead] reached level 200’

Am I missing anything? I still have that last hero slot to fill, well, it will come. I do not know what I need at this point, the book of skeletons has got me covered for most random utility things. Pareth is a great front line…

Either way it has to be a skeleton right? It would be wasteful otherwise.

“Oh, I should try my new skills at least once.”

Sofia summoned the salamander skeletons from the book and spent half an hour practicing with the active effect of [Heat Death], the magic negation.

 

“Alright, for the grand finale, all at once.”

Five balls of fire shot out of the salamanders’ mouths, right before they could collide with Sofia, they all disappeared. It was as if the attacks had been teleported away or straight up deleted by the Gods, but the truth wasn’t simpler.

It was surprisingly easy to use, she could feel whenever magic was about to damage her, even when she couldn’t see it, and she would instinctively know the approximate cost to negate it. If she chose to, a ray of mana would shoot out of her body and collide with whatever magic was headed toward her. It would instantly spread across the enemy magic like a virulent plague and forcefully disperse its mana, leaving behind only a harmless mana fog. The whole process was so fast that Sofia had to do it many times before she could even figure that much out.

The five salamanders were almost running out of mana so Sofia dispelled them. She was surprised to see her mana slightly shoot back up. Right, [Heat Death] did that too.

‘Absorb 40% (Class level/5; maximum 100%) of the remaining Mana from nearby deaths; excess will be lost; absolute effect; 200 meters range (Class level).’

“Damn I need to test that too.”

The ten next minutes were spent carving a [False immortality] rune. Sofia then summoned a random skeleton out of the book and immediately dispelled it. Her mana went back up by 800 points, 40% of the skeleton’s mana.

“It really bypassed the rune! Wait, so… You’re telling me…”

Mana : 266 717 / 319 100

Sofia summoned the squad of twenty-five Paladins from the book. Costing her a whopping 5000 mana.

[Solar Paladin - Lv. 200]

Health : 20 000 / 20 000

Stamina : 20 000 / 20 000

Mana : 10 000 / 10 000

Lifetime : 11 996s/ 12 000s

 

She dispelled one of the Paladins.

Mana : 270 717 / 319 100

Such a good specialization. Sofia dispelled all the Paladins.

Mana : 319 100 / 319 100

And I still have the rune on me. This is insanity. Too bad this is limited, the mana I’m consuming is actually Bookie’s fog. Sure the Paladins only cost me 5000 mana, but they still take almost half the fog… Well, it’s good to know I can do this.

“That leaves only one thing to try.”

[Erredian Rot] : When activated, the light of your holy spells spreads ‘The Erredian Rot’.

Upkeep : 10 000 mana per second

 

This isn’t going to be spraying pink mushrooms everywhere, I hope. Maybe I should move to a rocky area, just in case.

Sofia watched her mana drop as she activated the passive skill, and she fired a quick beam of [Heal undead] onto a rock, on which were placed a leaf, a bone, and some meat. Before deactivating the passive.

A film of black substance covered in pulsating black veins appeared all over everything the light had touched, even the rock. At first, the leaf almost instantly disappeared, turned to ash, then the rot started eating at the rock. A hole was forming in the rock, of the diameter that the beam of light had been. A second after, the piece of bone started decomposing too, before the meat also turned to dust almost instantly. The black corruption started spreading all over the rock, out of the hole they had dug, but the veins were pulsating slower than before, and soon, it all disappeared. What was left was a hollowed stone on the ground with a bunch of ash in the hole.

The sight was disturbing at first, but thanks to her mana vision, Sofia had understood what happened. The black veins were draining mana. As soon as whatever they were draining ran out of mana, they consumed the object instead, and extremely fast at that.

At the end, their mana supply ran out. Feeding on the stone wasn’t enough to supply the rot with the mana needed for its continued existence, so it ate itself.

It even ate the fucking stone!