The moment Kaelen stepped beyond the forest's edge, something had changed.
He could feel it in the way the wind curled around him — no longer brushing past him like a boy, but circling as if testing a new force. His steps felt heavier, not in burden but in significance, as if the ground now remembered him.
The moonstone relic pulsed faintly beneath his tunic, pressing warm against his chest. With every beat, he felt something ancient whisper in his blood — not a voice, not a command, but a stirring presence. Power, waiting to be shaped.
As Kaelen walked through the outskirts of the village, unseen eyes tracked him. Birds quieted. Shadows no longer danced to the sun's will, but now trembled at something older, darker.
Inside his small, secluded training hut — gifted by his grandmother years ago as a private place of study — Kaelen knelt and laid the moonstone upon the dirt floor. With steady hands, he drew a circle of ash, infused with mana. Around it, he etched runes from the visions he had seen in the guardian's trial — symbols that flickered with eerie familiarity despite never being taught.
This was the First Summoning Rite — a forbidden spell from the legacy of death itself. Not something taught, but inherited through the bones of a forgotten bloodline.
"Pharos... awaken the sleepless. I call the forsaken, the shackled in death. Rise beneath the will of your new master."
The air grew heavy. The temperature dropped sharply. Dust curled into spirals as darkness formed within the circle.
Bones burst from the ground, assembling unnaturally with grinding cracks — ribs latching onto spine, sockets snapping into place, fingers twitching as life flooded into marrowless hands.
From the skeletal figure that emerged, Kaelen felt something… different.
This wasn't just a summon.
This was a soul drawn by resonance. A being of potential.
A Named Creature.
It stood hunched but tall, taller than Kaelen by half a meter. Its form was skeletal, but thicker, reinforced with iron-like bones marked by ancient, rune-like scars. Its hollow eye sockets pulsed with a dim violet light.
Kaelen stepped forward.
"You are not like the others."
The creature's jaw creaked open. Not to speak — it had no tongue — but in what felt like acknowledgement.
Kaelen's mind throbbed briefly… and a message appeared in the void of his consciousness.
‣ Named Creature Summoned: Bahlor the Oathbone
Class: Skeletal Warden
Category: Guardian
Trait: Soul Forge – May evolve using monster cores, relics, or sacrificed essence.
Behavior: Independent Summon. Protects the summoner even when unconscious or away.
Kaelen staggered back, gasping. He hadn't just summoned a skeleton. He had summoned a protector, a sentinel born from death's echo.
This was the power of the Necromancer Class… and it was only beginning.
He raised a hand toward Bahlor. The creature knelt with reverence — not like a beast to its master, but a soldier to its commander.
"You are my first. My shield, my blade. Let the world come. Let death follow me. We will rise together."
Kaelen sat at the edge of his small home, the stars brilliant overhead. A breeze rustled the leaves, and somewhere beyond the trees, a wolf howled.
Inside, Bahlor stood silently, guarding his door. Unlike regular summons, he did not vanish after time. He endured — a permanent presence unless dismissed or destroyed.
Kaelen's hands trembled as he stared at his palm, where a new mark now glowed faintly — a symbol etched in ghostly light. The sign of an awakened Necromancer.
Then — as if reacting to the bond he had just formed — a new screen shimmered in his mind:
Skill Unlocked: "Pharaoh" [Rare+]
Description:Allows the Necromancer to store souls of the newly dead or dying within a dimensional crypt. Stored souls may be reanimated, transformed into undead, or used as fuel for advanced spells. The result depends on material sacrificed during the transformation.
Storage Capacity: 5 (Base)
Transformation Chance: Random (influenced by item tier, soul strength)
Note: Certain souls may retain sentience.
Kaelen blinked, awe overtaking fear.
A library of souls… a forge of transformation… a crypt of potential armies.
And with this came responsibility. And hunger.
But before his thoughts could spiral further, his fingers brushed against something else — a jagged, red crystal in his pouch: the monster core of a boar-like beast he had slain in self-defense last winter.
He turned toward Bahlor.
"Let's see what you can become."