The Many Faced Man

I hurried over to the man with the bite on his neck. A katana laid down at his side as he stared blankly into his hands, covered in blood.

"So, this is the end." He said in a small voice.

I moved over to take a look at him, "Let me take a look at it, I can probably stop the bleeding."

He stopped me with his other hand, shaking slightly.

"Thank you, but.. the zombie bites are just like the movies. It won't matter even if you treated it."

I replied in a lighter tone, "Just let me treat it, I might be able to prevent the zombie virus with my abilities. So, I have to try. Let me see it."

The man hesitated for a moment and leaned his neck to the side, he flinched and moved his hand over it, still in apparent pain.

"I need to be able to see it." I said impatiently.

The man moved his hand away again.

I moved closer to the bite injury and took a closer 'look' at the Death Qi infesting the wound.

Probing it for a moment, I found I was still able to try and absorb some of the Qi on the surface, but could not touch the portions that were sinking deeper down due to interference of some sort.

'I couldn't absorb any from the undead before either. So long as something is still alive in one form or another, it seems you can't take absorb it's energy. The same obviously applies even for energies foreign to the body as well.'

Seeing the frustration on my face he laughed, "Hahah, well, thanks for trying man. If it is my time, then it is my time. I am grateful for the effort, really."

I frowned a bit, although I can't absorb it directly, it doesn't mean I can't do anything.

"I'm not sure if this will work, but just be quiet for a moment. I know some magic, I will try to pull out the Death Qi from your body."

He froze up after I told him that, as one might expect, his face which feigned relaxation became taut as he thought.

'Maybe, could I survive this?'

And on this thought, he no longer dared to move. To move, to push this man away, meant definite death. He wouldn't lose anything by letting him try, but he would lose everything if he tried to stop him.

'Well, telling him that bit to keep him still should be sufficient. This way I can concentrate on working.'

I stopped caring about talking to the guy and started to play with the Death Qi festering around the wound. Pulling this energy out would likely need be done in a manner akin to how one pulls a tenacious weed from the ground.

I knew from experiencing it before, the energy would put down roots starting at the infection before spreading through the body. Once enough of it spread to some of the major nerves, those nerves would become new sources of infection and accelerate the spread further.

The moment Death Qi completely infested a major nerve cl.u.s.ter, the host was already dead. However, this man had only just been bitten.

Applying some of my own energy to mix with the energy causing the infection, I was able to 'knead' the energy in a way so that it loosened up slightly, then I started to slowly pull out the 'infection' by inducing the energy to flow outwards at the source of each of the 'roots'.

After about three minutes I finally managed to get the 'roots' made of energy to fully retract and flow back up to the surface of the wound. The moment I finished getting it all to the surface, I forcefully pulled the remaining energy out of the wound.

Following that, I yelled out and got some cloth from the other survivors to bandage his wound with and we moved him to a bed in one of the apartments for treatment.

"There you have it, you should be in the clear. Your not going to become a zombie... at least, not due to that bite. Get another one and you might not be so lucky."

The man's pupils shrank, and he stuttered, "You.. your sure? I'm good?"

While washing his blood off my hands with some water I feigned a smile,"Yeah, I'm sure."

'This guy is a bit too finicky to be waving a katana around, isn't he?'

I also bandaged up and helped disinfect some of the wounds the others sustained as well, they were all lucky and did not sustain any wounds infected with that viral-like strain of death qi. I only ever had some experience in 'medical treatment' from my Combat Life Saver courses, but these fellows were completely inexperienced and knew nothing more than how to apply a band-aid. So I more or less ended up treating all their wounds.

I got up and told them I was going to go out and hunt some more zombies. When I said so, the two that were still able to immediately got up and said they would come with me.

"You guys should really just rest for the remainder of the day. You've fought hard enough today already, you can get back at it tomorrow. We will eventually re-take this town from the dead, but I don't want to lose too many people as we do so."

I returned to the roof and killed all of the disabled zombies. After killing each of them I found that some of their bodies deflated slightly, and two purple-black coins appeared nearby their bodies.

Picking up the coins I could feel that these coins were made up of a very pure kind of Death Qi. The front of the coin was demarked with a Ghastly Skull, while the back had an ambiguous humanoid figure on it.

Behind both the Ghastly Skull and the ambiguous human figure was the easily distinguishable number 1. In the lower right corner of the side with the human figure were the texts, 'Human Race Currency', and below it 'Planet Earth, Year 0'.

It seemed like this was a new form of currency made by the system. Was it made from death qi specifically because it was Zombies that were killed? Perhaps it was due to a similar principle that we recieved the Necromancy book drop before, it will only drop items which utilize the same energy as those you killed.

I returned to where I had dropped the Hulking zombies to before and finished them as well, but no deflation and no drops for me because only one who activated the system could get such things. Those drops before should have been counted as the guy named Kyle's kills.

After killing all of stragglers on the upper floors, all that was left was the horde of regular zombies below. I had no intention of facing them with my reserves on empty though, so I returned to a room I had previously stayed in with a door covered in Meteor Dust.

Bringing out the coins I found before, I tried examining it more closely. Tampering with the energy in the coin though, it instantly collapsed before I could see anything about it, turning into a pure death qi. This death qi replenished all of the reserves in my body. There was still some remaining energy left over, some was absorbed by the book of necromancy by my side but it mostly just dispersed into my surroundings harmlessly.

'So, the money can act sort of like a potion to replenish your energy? No, that's not all.'

I could tell that my Death Qi in my reserves had slightly increased in purity after absorbing this new source. My current reserves were made for a zombie, so they were slightly different from the energy I could utilize as a necromancer.

With this qualitative change, I should be able to use more spells with less qi. My body, mind, soul, all had far less rejection towards this purified Death Qi, this was the kind actually meant for necromancers, unlike the raw injection of death qi one can get from a zombie or extract from the 'virus'. It was increasing the purity of my reserves,or rather increasing the Qi to a type more suitable to myself, and this led to the reservoirs themselves also having a small qualitative change.

The corrupted nerve cells in my body seemed to become healthier, expanding somewhat as they recovered a bit from their severely shriveled state. This was qualitative change leading to quantitative change, as the healthier nerve cells could both retain more Death Qi and support a greater network of death qi that flowed between them.

With his Qi replenished, he turned his attention to the book of necromancy again. With his great boost in ability, he had previously been able to comprehend a new spell within less than a minute, and the following few 'spells' were no different.

From what he learned from the remaining Symbols of the Book of Necromancy, the initial cultivation of necromancer had a few different stages.

The first stage was sensing and moving Death Qi, this was the most basic qualification one had to meet. After all, if you couldn't see or move it, how exactly would one be able to form a spell with it?!?

The Book could forcefully heighten the senses of the user towards death qi by artificially mapping the flow of qi onto their mind and raising the mind's ability to interact with it. However, a user would still have to have bare-minimum talent where such a boost would allow them to successfully form their first spell from the book. The first Symbol acted like a meditation array, something that could help gradually increase one's affinity to Death Qi by immersing yourself in it.

The second stage would be the spell-caster stage. If one is able to form their first spell then they will already have formed a minor affinity with Death Qi. Their soul will gradually be able to manipulate and move Death Qi more easily, and their mind will be able to interpret Death Qi as a sense, and recall it's movements as though they were the movements of one's own body.

However, in the spell-caster stage one is still bound to using just their Spell Book. Although they can use the Death Qi with the help of their book, there are no reserves of it in their body. They can only manipulate Death Qi to fill up the reserves in the book, or wait for it to replenish it's own reserves naturally. In this stage one must increase their efficiency so that they can use the spell book to cast higher grade spells.

After repeatedly casting spells, you can slowly increase your ability to withstand Death Qi, once your affinity is high enough, you naturally progress to the third stage.

Then there is the third stage, which is the fundamentalist stage. At this stage you make apprentice grade necromancy artifacts. Some of these can allow you to summon, bind, and control dark spirits. Whereas others serve to increase your reserves of Death Qi. These Dark Spirits are bound in a special manner and gradually influence and refine your entire being into one more suitable for Necromancy.

At the fourth grade, one receives enlightenment from the spirits. You will naturally comprehend from them the method to do a soul refinement. You can use the soul refinement to assimilate the Dark Spirits that follow you, emulating the path of Shades and Banshees. Assimilating more dark souls usually means a greater talent, but it also meant a greater chance of cultivation deviation, which will (unsurprisingly) turn you into an actual Shade or Banshee.

After undergoing the soul refinement, one will then be able to contemplate on the 11th symbol. The Meditation array for Death Qi Sensing concept.

Once one contemplates on the concept successfully they will be able to sense their surroundings using Death Qi. At the initial achievement in this concept one will be able to use Death Qi to 'see' beings made of Death Qi from afar.

At the minor achievement one would also be able to weakly sense life-forces from a short distance. At the major achievement one would be able to weakly sense their surroundings with Death Qi. At the completion stage one could use a shroud of Death Qi to 'see' everything in a one-meter radius.

It was only at the completion stage that one would have their nervous system begin to naturally resonate with Death Qi, allowing the healthy nerves in the body to turn into both nodes and reservoirs for their Death Qi.

Upon the formation of a system of Death Qi, one would then be considered to be in the 5th stage, Channel Forming. At this stage one could finally 'cultivate' in a more literal sense. By repeatedly filling and using their energy, the System of Death Qi would continue forming until it reached completion within the body.

Although it occurred by chance, I could be loosely considered to be in this stage already. Albeit my Death Qi system is not as complete as the one shown within the 'memories' of Necromancy held within the symbols, and nowhere near as healthy-looking, it is still a complete and operational System of Death Qi.

From what I could tell, the Druid and Swordsman Jobs should also have similar stages. However, the system allowed them to skip directly over those stages and form their own energy reserves like I did. The same should be true for other classes including mine, which means I am basically just a weaker version of the Necromancer class.

That is cheating! Well, it is not like we really have the years it takes to cultivate normally like it wants us to in the book. Humanities only chance of survival is truly through using this cheating system, which allows us to bypass the normal methods. Can someone who has been 'programmed' to be able to do something ever compare to someone who actually learned it though?

The 6th and final stage was Mana Condensing. A real Necromancer uses Dark Mana, whereas the Death Qi an apprentice has is merely the bridge, something used to step onto the path of Necromancy and nourish the body so it can retain Dark Mana.

The final Technique in this book was how to use a sliver of Dark Mana Refined by an array to make a skeleton from the Dark Spirits you have bound. These fellows can help you produce enough Dark Mana so that you can advance to an Initiate.

My assumption is that you would need to find the next book in the Necromancy series to figure out how exactly one could use it to advance to Initiate, as the process to do so is not conveyed in the last symbol at all.

More or less, the symbols could be broken down and named like this:

-----------------

1st Symbol: Initial Death Qi Concept

2nd Symbol: Corrosion Spell

3rd Symbol: Dark Force Spell

4th Symbol: Poison Touch Spell

5th Symbol: Corrupting Poison Spell

6th Symbol: Dark Spirit Summoning

7th Symbol: Death Qi Storage Arrays

8th Symbol: Death Qi Gathering Arrays

9th Symbol: Dark Spirit Binding Arrays

10th Symbol: Death Qi Sensing Concept

11th Symbol: Dark Mana Condensing

12th Symbol: Raise Skeleton Technique

-----------------

Each successive symbol had both a greater difficulty and energy requirement than the one before it. My own energy system was also not nearly as perfect as the one a necromancer normally cultivates, the purity was terrible and the circulation system was a third the size of a complete version.

However, from what I could tell, it normally took years to form such a circulation system! Even then, only those with the talent were able to do so! Necromancers often had to make Blood Contracts with specific Undead Planes in order to force their way towards soul refinement or in order to become an initiate.

Even if my current Energy System was a third what it was meant to be, and the energy flowing through it was akin to muddy water, free is still free!

Who knows how long it would take to unlock that rumored system one can get from killing? Maybe in reality that system isn't as good of a deal as it seems on the surface anyways. I will take a good break where I can get it, and try to purify and cultivate this Energy System I got like a normal one.

As of right now, my energy could only allow me to use up to the spell from the 4th symbol. So now I had two new spells, [Dark Force] which basically allowed me to 'use the force' and push or pull people around with Death Qi. And then [Poison Touch] which would create a magic poison coating that would eat away at objects. It was a stronger and more physically condensed version of the Corrosion spell.

It could not move or spread out like [Corrosion] would, it would only affect objects in immediate contact, consuming Qi in direct proportion to however much was used. It was still in essence a poison. So, if it were on a stronger being, then even if it cannot melt through them it would still be able to enter the bloodstream and wreak havoc on their body.

After I finished going over the book and mulling over my thoughts it had already reached the next morning. I had a better grasp on my abilities now and was confident in fading off against that Horde. I went down and grabbed the two who could still fight, Tirone and Aira, and we went down to the floors below.