In the Central Tower of Stygai, the Eternal King remained in the same position and the same place. There were now only a few days left until the completion of the strange Stone of the Purified Soul that he had been working on for so many years…
His servant, who had been sent to visit the Necro Tower in person, had returned, and with him was Immortal.
"Greetings, Your Grace, it's been a while since we've seen each other in person…" Immortal greeted, making a slight bow.
"How is the boy? Do you think he's ready?"
"When it comes to his soul, he's still far away, when it comes to spells and subordinates, I don't believe he'll have time to master an advanced spell before the deadline you gave us…"
"And the Secular Ritual? Why haven't you started it yet?"
"We still have time… Or do we no longer have time?"
"Another coffin has started to have a lot of cracks, we have to start the boy's ritual so that he'll be ready to help us…"
Upon hearing about the coffins, Immortal frowned and even broke out in a cold sweat. Every time one of these things opened, it was equivalent to a new Calamity in Stygai…
"I'll try to speed up the ritual, but we still need at least 1 year. After that, Zhang's soul will have the equivalent of over 100 years of meditation…"
"I'll set up some seals around the Central Cemetery, but that won't last long either… This time, start the ritual inside my tower, and bring all your subordinates as well…"
"Esmer is still there, I doubt he'll change places at such a critical stage of his experiments…"
The Eternal King remained silent, not caring at all about the well-being of the only Blood Mage in the city. And Immortal understood his silence…
"I will prepare myself then, with your permission…" Immortal bowed one last time, leaving the chambers of the Ruler of Stygai…
***
Zhang was sitting in the room where he always received lessons from his master, but since he had not arrived yet, he was checking all his gains in the last 3 years…
While reviewing his spells and his new subordinates, he looked at his mother's Guardian Soul that had now taken on a transparent form. Zhang could also finally observe all of her details thanks to the improvement of his Astral Vision over the last 3 years. Lyrielle's appearance was identical to her living form, and she ran one of her hands through Zhang's hair, while smiling and looking at him affectionately…
Although Zhang only felt a light wind touch his head, he returned the affectionate gaze to his mother and smiled back whenever she did so. Zhang had fed Lyrielle eight Golden Ghost Dusts during these 3 years, and other than her form becoming more stable, and her showing some slight signs of emotion, she had yet to demonstrate any abilities or make any evolution…
Among the two new spells he learned was "Demon's Hands", this skill created a blue flame that covered both of his hands for a certain time, and any living being or Soul that was touched by it would meet a painful death. The difference between this spell and "Purge Soul" was that Zhang could kill more souls with the former, since the flames remained active on his hands for a longer time, while the latter only killed one target while attacking from afar with the same type of blue flame…
The second spell he learned was to make his life easier… "Create Soul Stone"; it was a spell that freed him from continuing to use rituals to collect small amounts of souls every day in the Cemetery of Souls…
His new Lesser Lich had an advanced fire spell, called Great Wall of Fire, and because he was a Lesser Lich, he also had his version of Demon's Hands. His intelligence as a lowly undead creature was extremely low, not being able to control his other subordinates, and not fighting well without his orders… Therefore, he was not much superior to his Undead Knight and his new servant, the Undead Mage, whom he made after buying a corpse from an apprentice in the Bizarre Bazaar…
Zhang also managed to create a Vengeful Soul by feeding an ordinary soul with the many Gray Ghost Dusts. Unlike his other subordinates, this one was very intelligent, but it could not speak… The Vengeful Soul's power was better on living beings, but it could still use Soul Telekinesis, so it was good at doing some simple tasks…
With this, Zhang had also reached his limits… He was still a young Necromancer with a very young soul, and he could not have any more subordinates, or it would burden his soul… Every creature had a symbol marked on their bodies or souls, and Zhang had another one like it marked on his. Each of these marks was made with the Necromancer's Alteration, and required the master's soul to always be stronger than that of his subordinates…
As a Necromancer Apprentice who had been meditating for less than 10 years, having so many subordinates was already quite impressive, and this was basically due to the effect of his special physique…
At this time, while Zhang was finishing checking his gains, Immortal finally appeared.
"Zhang, it's time for us to perform the ritual using the Reaper's skull… You'll probably be unable to move your body for a little over a year, but you'll still be able to use Astral Projection to continue studying and doing other simpler things… Get ready, we'll start the Secular Ritual in three days!"
"More than a year, huh… I should take advantage of this time to settle things with Anita, and send a message to Rafael…" Zhang thought.
"I'll get ready, Master, see you in three days!"
****
Special thanks to the Patreons:
Sage's Supporter: Jan, Vinnie, frimorigo, Leery Falcon, Parsa, Scott Robertson, and Pato Senalima!
Magic Apprentice: Axel Bour, Gabriele Sulpizio, Takatchi, mandeep singh, Austin, Kobe Robertson, Paul Gaslac, Niteo akuma, and 704Corleon!
Senior Magic Apprentice: Cole Bromley and Avacus!