60. The Undead Remodeling Procedure

Iron steeped in the malice of vengeful spirits made a fine match for the undead.

Which meant only one thing.

“Perfect for a remodeling procedure.”
“A procedure?”
“It’s what I call both remodeling and reinforcement, taken together.”

When he breathed spirit-energy into the Ring of Black Darkness, the Skeleton Mage he’d tucked away in a separate space popped out.

“Ge-gel-gel. Master. Good to see you.”

“Good to see you too.”

Jo Seungcheol.

Before the regression, a formidable mage who had reached the 7th-Rank plateau. Now he was a 2nd-Rank undead, a Skeleton Mage, rattling his jawbone.

‘I achieved Unison with him, so I ought to remodel him.’

Jo Seungcheol was a variant who, by fusing his soul with his living body, had mastered even 3rd-Rank magic. He put out several times the firepower of an ordinary Skeleton Mage, but his heavy mana consumption drained his stamina fast. That was the drawback.

‘Now he’ll be a fair bit more usable.’

The heap of Lumps of Iron Steeped in Obsession he’d hauled out of the gate served as a kind of mana pass, smoothing the flow of spirit-energy. Worked the right way, it could reinforce and support as well.

“Hey, partner. How much heat does the Witch’s Cauldron put out?”
“Up to five hundred degrees.”
“Three liters of smelted mana-stone fluid. Set the concentration to twenty-seven percent and boil it together with this for thirty minutes.”
“You’re paying for the materials, of course?”
“What kind of man are you, suspecting me like that.”

‘I gave you back every coin they skimmed off you, too. You’re hurting my feelings here.’

“I’m only saying it because you strong-arm me into these things.”
“Don’t like it, then don’t.”
“Ah. I’ll do it. I said I’ll do it.”

Shin Junseok grabbed the Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession and trudged into the workshop, grumbling.

‘Then I suppose it’s about time I got started on my end too.’

“Come here.”

“Ge-gel.”

Yujin’s hand ran slowly over Jo Seungcheol’s bones, from head to toe. He felt them over meticulously, now and then tapping them with a finger, tok, tok.

‘I’m concentrating, so would you mind cutting the nonsense?’

‘I’m checking the flow of spirit-power, that’s all.’

‘Tsk, tsk. This is exactly why a backwater goblin is no good. Their thoughts run impure.’

‘If it irks you so much, then strike me down with heaven’s judgment or something.’

Ignoring the seething Kronos, Yujin kneaded Jo Seungcheol’s whole frame.

‘This much, and remodeling him into a Dark Hood would be a waste. A Dark Minion is doable, though.’

Maybe it was the 7th-Ranker’s talent he’d carried in life, but the flow of spirit-power ran brisk. He’d lost every one of his original mana passes in becoming a Skeleton Mage, and even so, when spirit-energy was sent coursing through him it circled his whole body fast.

“It’s done.”

The lump of iron had boiled hard in the mana-smelting fluid. Shin Junseok cocked his head, puzzled.

“There’s no difference at all in its shape or properties, though.”

“You’ll see when I show you. And lend me those gloves on your hands, too.”

Heat-resistant gloves, the sort used for alchemy work. Yujin took the Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession that had boiled in the mana-smelting fluid and slowly pulled it apart in both directions.

— Tsuaaak—!

“Y-you tore steel apart with your bare hands!”
“Boil it together with mana-smelting fluid and it turns pliable.”
“It was rock-hard when I carried it in, though?”
“You have to apply force loosely.”

Push hard and it firmed up; press or pull slowly and it gave way easily, on the same principle as starch stirred into water. He scooped off a handful of the scrap and kneaded it by hand, shaping it into a close likeness of a bone.

“Seungcheol. Pull out that third rib over there.”

“Ge-gel.”

Tuk. Without a moment’s hesitation, the Skeleton Mage detached its rib, and Yujin fitted the chunk of Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession he’d just kneaded into the hollow it left behind.

— Sssss-sss—!

Just as he’d once tampered with a zombie’s remodeling values to alter its structure and turn it into a plague zombie, this time he used spirit-power to graft the Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession onto Jo Seungcheol’s bone.

The bone was bonding with a foreign material, one that had never been part of the undead. The reaction was the same as white blood cells turning on germs that breach the body.

‘Don’t reject it. Accept it.’

Yujin tuned the wavelength of his spirit-energy to Jo Seungcheol’s soul, lodged in the bones. The energy flowing through his palm passed through the lump of iron and circled the Skeleton Mage’s whole frame, down to its very bones.

The Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession, its assimilation complete, was no longer recognized as a foreign substance embedded in the Skeleton Mage’s body.

“Ge-ge-ge-gel!”

Jo Seungcheol’s jawbone worked noisily, clattering with a grinding clack, clack.

“Why’s it doing that?”
“I transplanted a Lump of Iron Steeped in Obsession, so its stats went up.”
“Just from swapping out one measly bone…”
“Do you have any idea how much trouble it is to fit a new rib on?”

Spirit-power control like this lay beyond anything a 2nd-Ranker could imitate, an undead remodeling procedure only Yujin, who stood at the very summit of Necromancy, could pull off.

‘Six spots in all that need replacing.’

The mana the smelting fluid had melted into the steel would hold for about an hour before it faded.

‘I’d better finish within that window.’

Yujin removed the bones he’d checked beforehand one by one, swapping them out for Lumps of Iron Steeped in Obsession.

“Phew. Been a while since I did this — I’ve gone rusty.”

Yujin grumbled, catching his breath. Forty-seven minutes: that was how long it had taken to swap out the bones of the Skeleton Mage (Jo Seungcheol).

‘My senses aren’t what they used to be, so I suppose it can’t be helped.’

Back at the 9th Rank, he had only to spread out his spirit-energy and he could read everything as though he held it in his hand, to say nothing of the precision of his control. He’d remodeled Jo Seungcheol by recalling the senses of those days as best he could, but set against his prime it fell well short.

“Partner. About that mana you moved just now.”
“A bit clumsy, wasn’t it?”
“…Excuse me?”

‘Why are you answering a question with a question?’

Even under Yujin’s edged gaze, Shin Junseok pressed on stubbornly with what he wanted to say.

“You aligned a link with mana and forced a connection, didn’t you.”
“This scrap’s wavelength happens to mesh well with the undead.”
“If body parts could be swapped out just because the wavelength matches a little, then would people do transfusions without checking blood types?”

Shin Junseok’s eyes had flipped over. Under the madman’s stare, Yujin caught himself taking an involuntary step back.

“Teach me that knack too.”
“Hmm. It’s not really the sort of thing you can explain in words.”
“Whatever, just — once you’re done with the work, walk me through it out loud, or give me a demonstration at least.”

‘This guy. His eyes have rolled back again. Honestly, let anything come within a mile of alchemy and he loses his mind.’

‘Come to think of it, it’s not entirely unrelated.’

The technique appeared nowhere in the knowledge of the necromancers who had come before him. He’d stumbled onto it by inspiration while digging into alchemy to strengthen the dead, and the name “procedure” was something he’d coined himself.

“Fine. I’ll teach you later.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it.”

‘No telling whether the reinforcement procedure can even be grafted onto alchemy. But if the man wants it, there’s no choice but to oblige.’

“So is the work finished, then?”
“The first stage is.”

Stopping the procedure here would leave him with nothing more than a freakishly good Skeleton Mage A. To draw out Jo Seungcheol’s talent from life, he had to break the mold of a low-grade undead and lead him up to a higher tier.

‘For the reinforcement I’d normally need to master a higher-order spell like Raise Dead, but…’

How many times had he leaned on irregular methods since regressing? He’d even crafted an Eldritch Dragon, a mighty undead no 1st-Ranker could so much as dream of. Incomplete though it was, the System itself had accepted the feat as a miracle. Next to Fafnir, reinforcing Jo Seungcheol was far easier.

‘To push the procedure’s success rate up to one hundred percent…’

Yujin turned his head.

“Is there something else you need me to do?”
“Carve some focus circuits onto the spots where I swapped in scrap for bone.”
“You sure do love handing me the difficult jobs.”

A focus circuit gathered mana by artificial means. Among modern alchemists, only a precious few could engrave one flawlessly on the first attempt, and Shin Junseok was one of them.

“But if you carve as many as six circuits, a mana backflow might happen, you know.”
“That phenomenon is exactly what I’m inducing.”

The instruction made no sense. Rather than press for an answer, Shin Junseok engraved the focus circuits onto the scrap that had replaced the bones, exactly as ordered.

‘It’s not like that man started this yesterday or the day before.’

From the very first time they’d met, hadn’t the man gone entirely his own willful way? Barging into the workshop, nailing a potion’s blend ratio at a single glance. He’d rattle off recipes unknown in the present age and toss out flashes of brilliant insight besides.

‘Let’s observe what happens.’

Shin Junseok, who had reminded himself that he’d believe it even if Yujin told him to brew soybean paste out of red beans¹, finished the work.

“Shall we begin, then.”

When he circulated the spirit-energy he’d breathed into Jo Seungcheol’s bones, the focus circuits gave off a blue glow.

— Frrrr—.

Focus circuits existed to concentrate and feed mana, like a golem’s core. The Skeleton Mage (Jo Seungcheol) had been short on output to begin with, and now six cores hung off its frame. While the Lumps of Iron Steeped in Obsession had merely stood in for bone, the spirit-energy had circulated without trouble; once six focus circuits were carved in, it lost its way and thrashed in every direction.

“Ge-, ge-ge-ge-gel.”

“It doesn’t even hurt. Bear with it a little.”

A living person would have felt the agony of blood running backward and muscle tearing to shreds. But Jo Seungcheol was one of the dead. He wasn’t even a high-grade undead like Fafnir, who had won back some measure of sensation; he was no more than a Skeleton Mage A. Pain? How would he even know such a thing.

‘Achieving Unison doesn’t bring sensation back.’

The bones trembled like an aspen. Paying it no mind, Yujin pumped in the spirit-energy from his own body for all he was worth.

— Pop—!

When his spirit-power ran low, he drank a potion and converted it with Life Drain.

‘The very thing I did during the spar, all over again.’

Then the spirit-energy that had soaked into Jo Seungcheol’s bones reached its limit.

The bones began to stain jet-black. Blue ghost-fire surged up from the empty eye sockets, and the spirit-power that had been wandering the bones with nowhere to go seeped into every joint. The whole frame darkened to jet-black. Even after soaking into the bone, the surplus energy discharged outward, taking shape as a jet-black robe that draped itself over the body.

— Flap—.

The jet-black robe billowed in the wind, and through the gap, two fiercely blazing eyes caught the gazes of the two men.

“Wh-what just happened?”
“It succeeded.”
“That’s what I’m asking — what succeeded.”

His face was a tangle of astonishment, shock, and joy. Watching so many different emotions surface on a single person at once was a curious thing.

“The undead reinforcement procedure.”
“Ha. Partner, where on earth do you keep getting knowledge no one’s ever heard or seen.”
“I got lucky, that’s all.”

It was no lie. Had he never unraveled the secret of the Ring of Black Darkness, his climb to the summit of Necromancy would never have happened.

“Seungcheol. Can you hear me?”

— Yes. Master.

The thought came through with perfect clarity, nothing at all like the Skeleton Mage that had only rattled its jawbone before.

“You remember the moment you died, don’t you?”

— I do.

“You must resent me.”

— You who brought a life already lost back from death. At this point, it holds no meaning.

The spirit-power coursing through his bones had come from Yujin to begin with. Yujin held perfect dominion over Jo Seungcheol, who had gained self-awareness on becoming a Dark Minion.

‘You were so angry a moment ago, and now nothing to say?’

‘You’re not actually curious about how the procedure changed the undead, are you?’

‘I poked at it on the off chance, and it turned out to be true.’

Yujin’s gaze cooled.

‘This is exactly why you’re a backwater goblin.’

‘Listen carefully. The most important of the newly added traits is…’

Yujin’s lips parted.