The Ruined Death Knight

With the newfound knowledge that Danzel was able to gain thanks to being able to see soul essence, he called to settle down for a few days in that village to further his knowledge.

And as far as he was aware, he was in every known village on this side of the frozen lands. A few of them were abandoned while other ones were like the one he was now, controlled by ice trolls with fox slaves under them.

Of course, the ice trolls were slayed and the fox people joined the group that was following him.

He didn't know what to do about them.

Although the food that they gained was substantial and would last them quite a while, Danzel was surprised to know how much food was being spent per day once he asked the undead who was keeping track of him.

Although they went out hunting, with the food that was being spent and the food that was being supplied, sooner or later a food crisis was going to happen.

He couldn't care less about them honestly.

He just needed a few of them and in the worst situation, he could go back to Vashara and find some "volunteers" to receive his "blessing".

Shiro wouldn't like it, but even then, the deed had to be done.

Though, he wasn't stupid enough to attempt it without Shiro's help.

He saw countless times how the living would scream in pain once they had a limp cut or a sword inside them.

Opening them up and carving runes in their bones would probably push them to the limits and kill them from the sheer pain and then from the blood loss.

Leaving him with only being able to work around what soul essence.

While it took him a while, he did figure out some stuff thanks to his experimenting around.

The first thing was that the soul essence itself was naturally recoverable similar to mana. Just the rate of its recovery was far, far slower than mana itself.

Also that it was way trickier to make use of it. And his very own soul essence was much easier to and stronger that the soul essence of others.

The latter he found out by trying to mix his soul essence with someone else soul essence.

And while it took a while of hard focus, his soul essence was able to overwhelm the foreign soul essence and make it its own.

Or rather, being able to make use of the extra soul essence for his abilities.

The additional soul essence that was foreign couldn't be placed in his body or rather soul.

Danzel saw potential in such a finding, as it was basically a new energy source that could be saved ahead of time.

Regardless of having a few extra rules in it, energy was still energy.

As long as he learns and found a way to use it, his strength and options will also develop regardless of the status screen.

As he had already proven that he can learn stuff manually without the help of the status window.

He was already thinking of how to make use of it, but first, there were two crucial problems to achieve that.

One was generating soul essence and the other was containing it.

A soul by itself generated soul essence as far as he knew. Making it a limited resource that he had to manually gain with a large focus of his mind.

And storing the energy for later use was the most important part.

As long as he figures the latter, he would be able to make use of soul essence.

Or at least starting to figure out how to make use of soul essence.

And by the fourth day when Shiro had her second "growth", Danzel managed to find a hint of how to possibly store soul essence.

And that was by use of his mana aptitude was soul affinity.

Or rather let the soul essence stick to his mana.

He only managed to learn of this after using [Soul Reaping Wind] at a pack of wolves that happend to come at the time when he was talking about his drugs.

Once he used the skill, he realized how special his mana aptitude was.

On the fourth and fifth days, he spend figuring out the details of what his mana did to "dominated" soul essence, his own and from others.

With all those details known, Danzel had something in the mind about how to store the soul's essence.

And that was by the use of a mana crystal.

But none of a normal one, but a mana crystal that had his mana "signature".

Now usually, mana crystals are being delicate mined. They most commonly have neutral mana or one of the natural elements. Rarely has it been seen for mana crystals to form other types of mana such as light, darkness, chaos, or arcane. Though a mana crystal with the signature of death mana has never been formed naturally. Even if there were some expectations, no mana crystal existed that was of such mana aptitude.

Though the magic caster found a way to bypass this rule throughout history in many varieties of ways. To form a change or to form a mana crystal with an element or their specific mana signature.

And Danzel, just happend to have a method for the latter available to him in hand.

On the sixth day, Danzel spent his time leading a lesson with his Anabast and "overlooking" them.

He put them to practice the [Necromatic Restoraction] while being open to their questions as he was reading a particular book that he hasn't touched for a long time.

As for why he was teaching them this spell, it was of course with the mind of supporting him in the battle. For the Anabast this spell might as well be useless with their regenerative bodies and Danzel didn't hide that fact from them.

If they were apprentices and he was their teacher, they might have been less motivated to learn a useless spell. But as they were the creations and his was their creator and master.

They gave it their all to learn it.

Their progress was fast, with the one taking the lead being of course Talon, who thanks to his improved talent on dark mana were much easier to learn the spell.

In fact, Danzel guessed that he needed another day or two to completely learn the 1st-tier version of [Necromatic Restoraction].

And while they were training he was reading that one book.

Anabast were beyond happy with their creator overlooking them and resolving the questions that they had with magic. It was a first.

But even then with the book that they received, they couldn't help but wonder what kind of book their creator was reading. As they saw it before.

Baron was the only one that had no interest in it, focusing on his task of learning the spell that to distract himself from such thoughts.

But Leyone, Rayone, Sylas, and Talon couldn't help but be curious.

They looked at each other as if urging the others to go and ask.

Their gaze though at last landed on Talon, who time and time again took the lead to speak to their creator and technically, was the oldest amongst them.

Talon immediately felt annoyed at his younger "siblings" actions against him. A word that he learned from those fox people.

Alas, as he was the most qualified as of now, he could give in and relieve his and the other's curiosity.

Going towards their creator, the latter was already looking at him.

Already having noticed the weird feelings of those Anabast.

"They seem to have put you into something, Talon." Danzel said with his cold voice as he closed his book.

"I apologize o thee creator...our curiosity got the better of us and we couldn't help. I will go right back and-"

Danzel raised his hand to stop him.

"It's alright, I told you guys to come wherever you got any questions. I might as well relieve that curiosity of you all." Danzel said while eying the other Anabast.

Talon stayed silent for a while before pointing his hand toward the book that Danzel was holding.

"We were wondering of what kind of book thee creator would be so occupied with...It's different from the one that you gave us." Talon asked.

Nodding at Talon, Danzel raised the book.

"You are indeed right, that one is a completely different book than the one I gave you. It was given to me by a..."friend" sort of. A gift for separating ways to say the less. He was also the one that gave me this sword and armor, well most of it." Danzel said as he remembered the damage to his armor.

"The book contains how to make a mana crystal with your own mana signature. I didn't give a copy of this to you guys as it doesn't contain information about spells."

Nodding in understanding, Talon couldn't help but ask after.

"What kind of person is the thee creator's friend?"

"..."

Danzel stayed silent as he thought about the question.

Seeing him no answer, Talon quickly bowed his back as having gone too far with his question.

"I apologize thee creator, I have-"

"No...it's alright." Danzel said as he remembered the one that gave him this book and who proclaimed to rebuild a fallen empire.

"He was someone who would proclaim to build an empire, an undead like us. A great magic caster who controlled sand and turned the same sand harder than steel. His name was Nersan'rah..." Danzel said as he recollected his memories about the Death Spirit.

"He was-" Before he could continue telling his experience with the Death Spirit that he had met Talon.

He suddenly felt a thread of connection being cut away.

Flaring his eyes, Danzel put his book down and drew the Skull Claw Dagger, and examined it closely.

"No, the connection was damaged..." Danzel mumbled as he looked in a certain direction.

'The ice troll is dead, huh?' Danzel mumbled as he rose up from his seat.

Holding the dagger, he could feel the connection fading by the second.

Danzel tried to remember the way where the connection line was before it was completely broken.

Alas, it didn't take long before the connection vanished completely.

But even then, Danzel was able to gain the vague direction of where the ice troll that he had marked could have died.

Making his map appear from his storage ring, Danzel put his hands towards where the supposed lands of the Primordial god of Wild Hunt were supposed to be.