Ch175-The Lich Is Back (Patreon)

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Ch175-The Lich Is Back

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As with any ritual Sylver performed, when he wasn’t using scraps and was limited on time, everything was going smoothly and predictably.

Sylver’s body was in a very calm and constant process of breaking apart, and being forced back together using his magic. His bones would twist and turn and disintegrate, only to reform stronger than they were before, and then start breaking apart again.

Sylver’s internal organs slithered out of their metallic confines and fused with the ones he had taken from his clones, in a calm and orderly fashion.

It was at some point during the 4th hour of floating around in a giant vat of liquefied flesh and bone, that Sylver remembered he still had a few system-related things to handle.

Total Level: 137
[Koschei-9]
[Necromancer-100]
[Swamp Lord-28]

CON: 180
DEX: 105
STR: 105
INT: 275
WIS: 236
AP: 30

Health: 3/1,800
Stamina: 6/900
MP: 1,577/11,000

Health Regen: 21.00/M
Stamina Regen: 16.20/M
MP Regen: 5841.00/M

Sylver couldn’t help but smile at how inconceivably tiny his remaining HP and Stamina were.

The system very clearly couldn’t understand what the fuck he was doing, or what was going on with him and his body. As far as the system was concerned, at this very moment in time Sylver was a giant slime made out of pig meat, and cow carcasses, with 16 hearts taken from his clones that had been compressed and fused into one.

Sylver felt the muscles that would soon be in charge of moving his face around tighten, as the closest thing to lips curled into a smile.

If everything here goes well, my HP is pretty much a non-issue.

Should I spend 20 points to get it up to a nice round 2,000?

Is there any point in doing it, considering that no one will ever be able to read my status?

Sylver hesitated, but the mage in him wouldn’t be comfortable leaving his HP at such a number. It was an even number, but it wasn’t neat. If it was 1,500, Sylver could have let it go. Even better if he had kept it at 1,000, but now his option was to leave it at an annoying 1,800, or to waste 20 whole points to make it 2,000.

...

Fuck it, it’s only 20 points…

Although Sylver considered dropping the remaining 10 into his intelligence, getting his strength and dexterity to an even ish 110 was more important.

But this is the last time, from this point on, everything is going directly into intelligence.

Once again, Sylver hesitated.

But then a mixture of embarrassment and anger at the fact that he was rationing his points in such a way made him spread them out without any further thought or discussion.

Total Level: 137
[Koschei-9]
[Necromancer-100]
[Swamp Lord-28]

CON: 200
DEX: 110
STR: 110
INT: 275
WIS: 236
AP: 0

Health: 5/2,000
Stamina: 9/1,000
MP: 3,447/11,000

Health Regen: 23.33/M
Stamina Regen: 18.00/M
MP Regen: 5841.00/M

Sylver could feel it.

He could feel the thing he couldn’t formulate a full thought about, looking for some part of him to improve and infuse to make the floating number match his body. Whenever it got near a part that made sense, Sylver forced that portion of himself to break apart, and he did this a total of 2 times before he felt a warning hum coming from within his skull.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Sylver thought as he reformed enough of himself to let the thing do what it came to do and promptly broke its work apart out of spite. He moved on to the next thing to address.

[Draining Blight (V) rank up available!]
Choose 1 from the following:

Draining Blight (VI)
-Decrease the rate at which excess MP, HP, and Stamina is lost by 50%.
-Absorb MP, HP, and Stamina through a mana imbued object.
-[Requirements not met]

2 out of 3, not bad…

Sylver waited for a few seconds, as Spring poured a large flask full of granulated cobalt and magnesium, and then tossed in a handful of titanium chips.

Remembering that the first effect had already been offered in the past, Sylver decided to ignore it, and take it in the future, when there weren’t any good effects to choose from.

[Skill: Draining Blight [B] (VI)]

Skill level can be increased by draining HP, MP and Stamina. (Skill level will only increase if the creature being drained is killed.)
I – Create a cloud that will absorb Health, Mana, and Stamina from the target creature.
II – Absorb through solid materials. *Efficiency decreases by 50% for every centimeter of material.
III – Channel a drained attribute into a willing creature.
IV – Drained creatures can be chained together to increase range and efficiency.
V – Mana can be drained from a spell or object. *Type of magic being drained must be known.
VI – Absorb MP, HP, and Stamina through a mana imbued object.

*

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*

The small collection of hourglasses Spring was watching, that likely belonged to Misha or Masha, informed Sylver that a total of 16 hours had passed since he had entered his blood and meat bath.

Although there was very little of anything left inside the vat anymore, Sylver was curled into a ball, at the very bottom of the nearly empty glass cylinder.

To be entirely honest, at this point he was just resting. What he had gone through wasn’t inherently difficult, but it was exhausting on a mental, and spiritual level.

Literally.

Sylver’s soul was tired.

It wasn’t every day he altered his body to such a degree.

Which, in it of itself was fucking hard, but Sylver wasn’t just building himself a body, he was building one that went against his natural primal energy field.

Not to mention he was, technically speaking, making himself two bodies.

Ideally, he would have removed his indestructible ribcage, removed the rune from it, got his needle out, and had it housed in a brand new, proper sized, indestructible ribcage.

But that would take time, quite a bit of time, not to mention Sylver wasn’t too keen on walking around with the equivalent of his phylactery being within striking distance. Leaving the needle at home was an option, but Sylver would be a nervous wreck the moment he left Arda.

He trusted that Misha and Masha would be able to handle anything trying to attack the house, but all it would take it one person with the right skillset to walk past their defenses, Sylver’s curses, and then snap the metal toothpick into two.

If it was with Sylver, then at least he could do something, run away, hide it, have a shade fly away with it, or simply hand it over to a demon to keep safe for him.

The last one was if things became extremely dire.

Sylver had about 50 different significantly less dangerous contingencies.

What Sylver ended up doing took a fair amount of guesswork, and in a certain sense of the word, luck.

If Ciege had been even a little wider, Sylver would have had to scale up his body to an uncomfortable size. But as it was, Sylver felt fine, his fingers were still a little too long for his taste, but anything shorter than what he currently had would make people uncomfortable.

I should ask Lola if she noticed people being shorter here than they were when she was alive…

Sylver unfolded his limbs, as Spring sprinkled the last ingredient, that started the solidification process. Sylver’s raw and exposed muscles started to foam, and sputtered with bright gold light, as he stood up from the floor and leaned back until his outside spine cracked.

He leaned forward and had to punch himself in the back to get his inside spine to crack.

Sylver used [Dead Dominion] to wipe away the small bits left on the glass cylinder, and looked at his reflection.

There was a clear film covering Sylver, foamy white bubbles, that forced the previously bread dough soft muscles, joints, and ligaments to solidify and tighten, to the point Sylver could feel his insides being constricted with each passing second. His eyes budged out of their sockets for a moment, before he allowed the liquid trapped behind them to escape through the hole where his nose used to be.

He stood there for a while, stretching, adjusting, and waiting, as his muscles rippled with the effort, and his bones soundlessly accepted the ever-increasing pressure.

His white, nearly translucent flesh, made the pitch-black bones stick out like blood on snow. Similarly, his blood was such a contrasting dark purple, that it almost looked like he was wearing fishnets on his arms and legs, under a certain angle at least.

The last part Sylver focused on, was the part that disturbed even him.

He was using the eyes embedded in his head, to stare at the face looking back at him from within his chest. With his thick ribs blocking it, and the dark purple blood vessels covering what the bones didn’t, Sylver could barely see the squashed and eyeless skull.

He moved the blood vessels around until it was completely covered.

Technically speaking, Sylver’s “head” wasn’t his head. It was his “scalp,” or at the very least that was the case according to his primal energy field. He’d never adjusted himself in such a way before, the sheer amount of trial and error it took got dangerously close to driving him insane.

But regardless of the difficulty, he’d done it.

His “face” was out of sight.

Or at least he hoped that was the case. It did occur to him that the system might use a different metric to determine what constitutes a “face,” but at least now he no longer needed to concern himself with getting his head cut off, or crushed.

Because the “head” that housed his eyes, his ears, tongue, and nose was just an extension of his actual head, hidden away inside his well-protected chest. And inside his chest, was a second chest, one that housed his “main” heart, and his needle, and a rolled-up patch of skin that contained his summonable ax.

With a thought, the foamy white liquid that covered Sylver’s body disappeared in a puff of grey smoke. Sylver moved his hand up towards his head and watched as his porcelain white muscles flexed in the process. He spent a while moving around, checking to see if he’d made any mistakes, but as far as he could tell, everything was perfect.

Sylver opened his hands to inspect his palms, and even knowing they were there, couldn’t see the slits inside his palm lines until he made them open up. A smoke so thick it was barely a gas poured out of the cuts on his hands, and dripped down onto the floor. Sylver opened and closed the slits multiple times, and couldn’t find anything wrong with them either.

He did the same for the slits on his back, his shoulders, forearms, and the ones hidden within the crook of his knees, and elbows.

Using [Fog Form] Sylver got out from the cylindrical glass vat and stood on solid ground for the first time. He dragged his hands over his scalp, and fluffy white hair appeared on it. It wriggled around, like tall grass in the wind, before it settled itself down.

Sylver dipped his fingers in the large pot Spring was holding for him, and slathered his left hand with the oily liquid. It sat lifelessly on his white raw flesh, as Sylver continued spreading it around his body, and finally scooped the last bit out, and rubbed it into his face and back of his head. He took a small copper cup from Spring and swallowed the contents in a single gulp.

The oily liquid started to hiss and began to slide off Sylver’s body. It landed on the floor and continued hissing as it burned through the stone. Sylver took a deep breath, and the air burned his twisted up and compressed “lungs,” as he cleared his airways, and continued forcing air inside his body.

Finally, Sylver held his hand over the right side of his chest and kick-started his second heart. The hissing oily liquid began to hiss louder, and slid away even faster, as Sylver focused on his body, which was now almost completely covered in spotless skin.

Sylver’s old strange mixture of muscular and starved was now replaced by a somewhat healthy-looking streamlined and lanky build.  He finished breathing in, and for a moment, stood perfectly still and allowed his body to get used to its new shape.

“Why did you make it smaller?” Spring asked, and broke Sylver’s concentration, as he looked down at himself.

“It’s the same size, the rest of me is just bigger,” Sylver said, and scowled as he realized he was now 2 heads taller than Spring.

Sylver closed his eyes again, and after a series of hisses, pops, and crunches opened his eyes and was now at eye level with Spring.

“Your shoulders are too square,” Spring said, as Sylver flexed his shoulders, and then flexed them again until they rounded off. He walked over to the glass vat and looked at himself in the reflection.

What he was, was somehow worse than seeing a face inside his chest staring at him. He looked like some sort of stroke victim, with the way his muscles were all scrunched up, with his skin folded like an accordion.

Sylver actually jumped a little in the air, as he released the tension and returned to his new regular height.

“You’re a pale dude, with white hair, pitch-black eyes, and with an allegedly weird accent, do you really think being tall is going to make you stand out?” Spring asked, as Sylver attempted to make himself shorter one more time, but had to stop as he heard the sound of bone rubbing against bone.

“It’s not about standing out, it’s about the decoy shades being the same height as the person they’re pretending to be,” Sylver explained, as he gestured at the group of shades that had appeared near Spring, and were noticeably shorter than the man they were impersonating.

“We can get them high heels for the meantime, but I’ll remind you about it if I see a tall bandit or something,” Spring offered, as Sylver continued to look at himself in the glass’ reflection.

All things considered, he looked pretty good. He wouldn’t go as far as to say he was handsome, the combination of black eyes and bleached white skin didn’t work all that well, but he would be hard-pressed to call himself ugly.

Sylver saw that his left eye wasn’t moving properly, and poked it with his finger until he managed to solidify the connection.

With everything finished, Sylver remembered how exhausted he was.

“Can you go check up on Salgok and Ciege while I sleep? And maybe pay Bruno a visit and-”

[Necrotic Mutilation (III) Proficiency increased to 79%!]

[Mutating Override (II) Proficiency increased to 91%!]

[Skill: [Appraisal] has been removed!]

[Skill: Arcane Insight [A] (IV)]
Skill level can be increased through successful use.
I – Get relevant detailed information about the target.
II – Get notified if an A rank or lower level [Appraisal]-like skill is being used on you.
III – See the quality of the corpse and soul of a target.
IV – Increase the skill range by 600%.

[Skill: [Physical Endurance] has been removed!]

[Skill: Vigorous Conditioning [A] (III)]
Skill level can be increased by receiving damage.
I – Increase resistance against [Positive Energy] by 25%.
II – Increase resistance against [Physical Damage] by 40%.
III – Increase Stamina Regeneration by 50%.

[Perk: [Eyes Of The Royal Tiger] has been removed!]

[Perk: Eye Of The Half Lich]
-Perfect Night Vision.
-Lesser Perception.
-Distinguish between marked and unmarked creatures.

[Perk: [Dead’s Dogma] has been removed!]

[Perk: [Tools Of The Shade] has been removed!]

[Perk: [Shadow’s Agent] has been removed!]

[Perk: Horde Of The Half Lich]
-Lesser Undead Instruction.
-Greater Undead Armament.
-Greater Undead Channeling.
-Grand Undead Empowering.
-3 Undead Evolutions Available.

[Trait: [Undead Domination] has been removed!]

[Trait: [Deathly Aura] has been removed!]

[Trait: Aspect Of The Half Lich]
-Undead can be converted into allies.
-Decrease the cost of [Dark Magic] by 25%.
-Increase resistance to [Dark Magic] by 25%.
-Increase resistance to [Positive Energy] by 10%.

Both Sylver and Spring remained perfectly still.

Sylver was afraid to move, to say anything, because he could feel the system circling around him, almost hesitant to turn the words into reality.

But despite how reluctant the system appeared to be, it didn’t overwhelm Sylver with the various boons it had provided him.

It was a quick, painless, and impossibly smooth process.

And just as Sylver was about to celebrate, possibly thank the system for recognizing what he had just become, it did the equivalent of spitting in his face.

[Trait [Abomination] has been removed!]

[Trait: Calamitous Abomination]
-By your actions, you have marred your very essence, and have created an abomination.
-Your continued existence will lead to calamity.
-Whoever kills you will receive 1/3rd of your total levels.
-Current amount of levels being offered: 45.
-Anyone that is successful at seeing your status will be informed of this.

Sylver just stared at the words.

The system wasn’t just annoyed with him, it was terrified.

With an enormous grin on both of his faces, Sylver called his robe over to him and started cleaning up his workshop.

*

*

*

Sylver had to remind himself to look up as Lola walked into the room. The [Lesser Perception] of the [Eye Of The Half Lich] perk made it so that he could see the world around him without looking.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough to what Sylver had been used to when he was an actual lich, that he had immediately gone back to his old ways, and had to force himself to use his eyes. He could see his surroundings using his mana, but it was limited, and the range was small.

[Lesser Perception] was as if he had an extra set of eyes floating around his head, that gave him nearly 360 degrees’ worth of sight.

[A skill similar to [Appraisal] has been successfully blocked!]

Lola reached into the fold of her robe, and ever so slightly bent her knees. Sylver remained where he was and just stared at her.

[A skill similar to [Appraisal] has been successfully blocked!]

[A skill similar to [Appraisal] has been successfully blocked!]

[A skill similar to [Appraisal] has been successfully blocked!]

“It’s me, stop it, the noise it makes is annoying,” Sylver said and had to hold back a laugh as Lola’s ears twitched at the sound of his voice.

“Syl?” Lola asked with a hesitation and uncertainty that hurt Sylver in a way he didn’t expect.

“Is it that bad? That even with the hair, and eyes, and that I’m in my own house, you still have trouble recognizing me?” Sylver asked from the sofa on which he had been resting until a minute ago.

In his current state, laying down felt uncomfortable. His newly made organs hadn’t enjoyed their metamorphosis and were taking their sweet time getting used to their new locations.

“Your face is different. You’re not even sitting like you used to. Even your mana feels like a completely different person’s,” Lola explained, as Sylver could do little other than shrug his shoulders.

“I’m sure there’s a polite way of saying this, but I can’t think of anything at the moment. This is just meat, Lola. I changed the meat to suit my purposes, I don’t know what else to tell you,” Sylver explained, as he gestured towards his face.

Lola walked towards Sylver, and with a weary hand reached out and touched his face. She poked him in the cheek, and Sylver felt a tingling feeling spread throughout the entirety of his body.

[A skill similar to [Appraisal] has been used!]

Lola’s eyes widened to the point that Sylver could see his reflection in her slightly bloodshot whites.

“I thought there might be something like this. But as long as I Leke can’t see my status, I’m not going to worry about it too much,” Sylver explained, as Lola pulled her hand back, and just stared at him in shock.

“What did you do?” Lola asked.

“A couple of minor upgrades… My mana channels are finally well above 40% conductivity, so I no longer need to worry about burning out while using my magic… I gave my mana core plenty of room to grow, and I solidified my soul a bit… Oh, my actual “body” is inside my chest, where my heart and lungs should be, except I removed its arms and legs, and all that’s left is a ribcage, and a squashed head,” Sylver explained, as Lola just stood there, and gradually moved her eyes towards Sylver’s torso.

He felt a faint burning on his robe, and out of the kindness of his hearts, parted the pitch-black robe to expose his torso to her. Sylver could tell by the way Lola’s eyes were moving, she was looking through him and seemed to be quite disgusted by what she was seeing.

“The rest of the changes aren’t really worth mentioning…” Sylver added, as Lola silently walked over to the armchair near the sofa Sylver was laying on and plopped down into it.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” Lola asked, and caught Sylver mildly off guard.

“To be completely honest with you, I just started preparing to distract myself from everything, and then decided the faster I get it over with, the sooner I can go to Edmund,” Sylver explained.

He still couldn’t feel Lola’s soul, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t read the high elf’s body language.

“You’re leaving… What about the dark elves you brought with you?” Lola asked.

“I’m going to talk to them, or their leaders to be precise. But I’m not sure what I can do until the Krist situation is taken care of… I was going to settle them down in eastern rock valley, the one with the combustible ants and-”

Lola made a face.

“I bet I can guess it in 3 tries,” Sylver said.

“The Krists kept attacking that area, and eventually this enormous larva thing popped. It flooded the tunnels with molten rock, and everything within 100 kilometers has been labeled a hazardous zone. I don’t suppose the dark elves are fireproof?” Lola asked with a faint smile.

Sylver drummed his fingers on the sofa’s wooden handle.

“What about Urth? The necropolis?” Sylver asked, and reached up with a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose as Lola made another face.

“The Krists forced a lot of undead out of hiding, the vast majority of whom were hiding and isolated for good reason. I’m told. Some genuinely can’t help themselves, some despise the living for personal reasons, some consider being alive a curse, and try to “help” the living, but long story short, I would recommend against it,” Lola explained.

Sylver continued to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“While we’re on the subject, they’ve had like 10 different leaders in the last 6 months. I don’t know what’s going on in there, but I know that every second leader has instigated a “suck the living dry,” policy. I’m not entirely sure they even have food there right now, all the reasonable undead have long since abandoned Urth,” Lola finished, as Sylver released his nose, and waited for a good idea to make itself known.

He spoke when none did.

“Can we meet at Ron’s tomorrow morning? I’ll introduce you to them, and we can all sit down and figure something out,” Sylver asked.

“Mid-day would be better for me,” Lola said after a moment of thought.

“Sure. I was planning on going to check if Leke could see my status anyway, I’ll do it in the morning in that case,” Sylver explained, and Lola made another face.

“Novva’s wife gave birth to a boy 4 years ago… Yeva is considered a master level crafter…” Lola said.

“I’m very glad to hear that.”

“Leke left Arda and went to Torg 2 years ago… and hasn’t been back since. She asked about you before she left, and I honestly told her I have no idea where you are, or when you’ll be back. I think she sent Tera a letter a few weeks ago, but I don’t know what it said,” Lola said, calmly, but noticeably upset.

“I’ll ask her when I see Bruno.”

“Sophia also left. Disappeared is probably a better word to use. She took a small group of priests and paladins, and disappeared in the middle of the night, without telling anyone, even me. No one knows where she is, and the new head priest is a major asshole, be careful,” Lola said.

“When?”

“4 months ago. She helped me out, big time, and disappeared the moment I no longer needed her help.”

They both remained where they were, as Sylver thought things over.

“Are you going to tell me what you were doing for 5 whole years?” Lola asked, after roughly 10 minutes of complete silence had passed.

“It’s a very long story…” Sylver said as he swirled his hand in the air, and a sigil-covered bubble formed around him and Lola to stop any curious phantoms from eavesdropping.

Sylver created a small illusion using [Mirage], and surrounded them with bleak white snow, to help set the tone. Lola leaned back into the armchair, and let out a relaxed sigh.

“The prickling on my skin informed me that I still had skin to prickle…”

NEXT CHAPTER 

(AN: Happy New Year Everyone! 

This is the last chapter for December, so regardless if I see you in January, thank you so much for everything! I hope 2022 goes well for all of us!

PS: Draining Blight should have been lvl V in the past chapters (I'm going to find and fix all the mistakes regarding that in the past chapters.)