“Leigh can you give me a hand?” I called out to the miniature blacksmith, noting her skeptical glance as she turns my way. I knew what she must be thinking. “I don’t need your help with the bodies, just a spell circle, okay? Otherwise I’ll be here all day”

  Leigh sighed and visibly relaxed while still making her way over to me. She pulled a small spade and a few other mismatched tools from her pack while a familiar look of workman’s determination took over her face. “What do you need me to do?”

  “So the outer circle is going to be the same conduit we used for the spirit summoning ritual, just don’t specify a recipient. Leave it blank if you have to. I’ll do the rest of the scribing.” I instructed Leigh carefully, noting how easily she fell into the practiced and memorized spell. The benefits of repetition on a lesser mind. I had to admit, what she lacked in raw talent she made up for in dedication.

  Leigh set about inscribing the circle, and I only had to stop and correct her once as she started the curve a little too small. As she worked, I placed the bones in the center of the work area and began inscribing the inner layer of the spellform. The theory behind my idea was more or less the same as any subservient minion spell, whether summoned or created, but instead of linking the new minions to my mind I was hoping to link them to Cain. He had a non-zero intelligence stat now, so it was theoretically possible, and I didn’t really need him to give them orders just relay whatever order he was given.

  Thankfully, Leigh did her work quickly and efficiently and the two halves of our individual spellforms quickly met at their overlap points. We formed a single multi-layered geometric circuit of mana, weaving together pieces from all of the individual spells I thought are applicable. It was a bit shoddy, being a rush job, and carving it in the dirt did no favors for precision. When you don’t have time to prepare, you must compensate with effort. Admittedly, in this case effort meant raw stats and abundant amounts of mana.

  “Leigh. I’m going to try and turn these bones into more minions like Cain. They attacked us, we killed them in self defense, and I see it as a waste to leave them laying here to rot. Do you want to leave for the actual spellcasting?” My question felt almost redundant, I knew at this point Leigh was insistent on proving herself not to be burden to me, but I was afraid her eventual fear would get the best of her if I didn’t provide a way out.

  Leigh grit her teeth and nodded to me, taking a seat by a near-bye tree and snuggling up with Cinder. She must not want to leave, but clearly doesn’t want to participate either. Coward. I could tell she’s conflicted, and that just had to be okay for now. I didn’t want to upset her any further, so I beckoned Cain over audibly. “Cain! Stand across from me please.” The billowing jet-black [Void Hound] took up his position and as he stared across at me I could swear there almost seemed to be a glimmer in his eyes.

  Don’t talk to the undead. It forms bad habits. A single thought wiggled into my focus from the other fractured half of my soul, accompanied by a few fragments of distant memory. Acolytes and apprentices from Andras’ days as a student, fellow practitioners of dark magics slowly devolving into madness when they lost sight of the cold truths of their spells. ‘Fine, I won’t talk out loud to Cain until he learns to talk back.’ I teased my other self, still holding onto the hope that Cain’s burgeoning intelligence was a sign of future potential.

  I was spiraling again, I needed to stop stalling. It was time to cast the spell. Cain and I both took a step forward simultaneously, standing just on the edge of the spellform and completing the magical circuit between the two of us. Mana began to pour out of me, and [Chant Omission] kicked into over drive to pick up the slack of weaving two spells together and remaining silent. I idly dismissed the notifications of my skills leveling up and clamped down on my focus before it could get further away.

  The mana I was spending slowly out-paced the trickle of regeneration struggling to refill my reserves, but only barely. Cyclically flowing mana pouring into me and then back out was a uniquely exhilarating feeling, like channeling raw lightning through my fingertips. Power welled up inside of me, the insides of my ears popped with pressure, my vision narrowed, and the entire world but me and Cain fell away. We shared a single endless moment, and I spoke the only word that felt right. Each sound I intoned outwards cut its way along my lips and the taste of blood accompanied a spell I had never cast before.

  “Rise”

  My vision returned all at once, and my mana pool bottomed out to a scant few points while I collapsed to the ground. The last thing I heard before I blacked out was the faint “Ding!” of a system notification I couldn’t read.

  The moment of unconsciousness was brief, I think, since I woke up to Leigh shouting in my ear and softly trying to shake me awake. “I’m fine, I’m fine. The spell just hit a bit harder than I expected it to.” I sat up, and glanced around the now expended spell form, still faintly steaming with power as the mana dispersed.

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  Standing in the center of the spell I just completed, was Cain. Surrounding him on all angles, just a half step behind, were four large wolf skeletons. Each bared the characteristic spikes of a [Saber Wolf] though now attached with barely perceptible magic. Cain stood tall, each new wolf held their head lower than him and when I reached for Cain in my mind even his mental presence felt larger. The spell worked.

  I struggled to my feet and Leigh rushed in to support my unsteady steps before I could fall. Without my prompting, Cain walked over and supported me from the other side by pressing his weight against my leg. Fascinating.

  “Leigh, pop quiz. Why did the spell I just cast cost me so much?”

  Leigh paused and thought about it for a long while before she spoke. “The most common causes of spell backlash are poor efficiency and system feedback.” Her answer actually took me somewhat by surprise since she was entirely correct. Perhaps she actually listens when we teach.

  “That is correct, and since I have several skills increasing the efficiency of every spell I cast, system feedback is a safe assumption. Here’s the big question though. Why?”

  I continued walking as Leigh sank deep into thought, magic was ironically the one place we still shared a common passion after everything between us. It was nice to have that unifying force no matter what. Once I reached Cain and his new fellowship of fanged undead I crouched down to their level and started inspecting my new minions. It was difficult to pull on their new connections with me but I found by sending information to Cain, with the express purpose of relaying it covered in his order, they responded nearly as fast as Cain did himself.

  It took some practice to get all four of them lined up in front of me, but once I had them nearby I could tell right away they’d be effective minions. Quantity is a quality of its own, there is strength in numbers.

  I activated [Blessing of Mana] and scoured the individual threads of power flowing between these newly undead wolves. None of them seemed to carry a core of any kind like Cain did, instead mana poured out of Cain and flowed through each of them simultaneously. They were fully mindless, acting as an extension of Cain like any living being would use a hammer or sword. Tools and nothing else.

  Strangely though, Cain had been exhibiting peculiar behavior since the ritual completed. Frankly, it was peculiar to see him exhibiting any behavior at all so I quickly glanced over his status. Only one stat score was important to me at that time.

  Intelligence: 7

  Gods above boy, you’ve created life! My other half cackled in my mind and I couldn’t help but agree with him. I needed to know for certain though, so I reached out to my old friend as I would normally.

  “Cain, I know you’ve been able to follow orders before, but those are all direct. This is conditional. Nod if you understand me.”

  There was a tense pause and right when I thought Cain wouldn’t do anything at all, his head shudders awkwardly up and down. I nearly jumped for joy, but my celebration was interrupted by Leigh suddenly letting out a deep sigh.

  “I can’t figure it out.” She lamented her confusion and took a seat against a nearby tree. “I know the spell has to have some conflict, but I can’t think of anything concrete.”

  “It’s okay” I laughed at Leigh’s exaggerated frustration. “This is beyond your normal wheelhouse since we’re dealing with high level necromancy theory. It’s what I’ve specialized in.” Leigh’s face turned sour as her distaste for my line of work was made apparent.

  “Traditionally, when you create a sentient undead you do so by binding an already intelligent spirit. Whether that’s a human or a sentient monster like a goblin does not matter, the point is animals are not known to achieve sentience after death.” I rambled on in my explanation, talking aloud and watching Cain with keen eyes. He had a different air to him every time his Intelligence score increased.

  “More over, when subservient undead are created as I have done, the standing practice is to have the minion perform the ritual that will be commanding them. To tether these animals direct to Cain’s burgeoning intelligence may prove a waste of time, but it violates every standing rule of necromancy. That’s why there was backlash.”

  With my explanation concluded, I rose from the ground and dusted myself off. I didn’t expect Leigh to draw much from my lesson, at least not yet, and there were still several hours left in the day. We could find a safer place to camp if we pressed on even just to get out of wolf territory.

  “Let’s go Leigh, I don’t want to make camp here in case the [Saber Wolf] pack was more than just these four.”

  Leigh didn’t respond, but instead furrowed her brow and staid seated. “Cinder just started his species evolution, we can’t leave until he’s finished.”

  I let out a deep sigh. “Fine, we’ll take some time to rest here. It will give me time to do Kite’s species evolution as well.” I was planning on evolving Kite the following morning after I’d had time to sleep on the matter, but if we were making camp here long enough for Cinder’s evolution, then there was no point in waisting away doing nothing. I can’t believe the fucking pig of all things reached Tier 4 in the same fight we did. If he wasn’t flameproof I’d suggest we cook him for breakfast.

  My soul-passenger almost elicited a chuckle with their frustrated ravings, I just happened to be too focused on the matter at hand to enjoy the humor.

  Instead I turned to face Kite, beckoning him close to sit on my knee. When the tiny featherless friend took his perch I reached for the connection flowing between us and read over his notifications.

  System linkage detected.

  Operational barrier removed.

  Congratulations!

  [Spirit Hawk (Kestrel)] has leveled up to 2.

  [Spirit Hawk (Kestrel)] has leveled up to 3.

  [Spirit Hawk (Kestrel)] has leveled up to 4.

  [Spirit Hawk (Kestrel)] has leveled up to 5.

  [Spirit Hawk (Kestrel)] has granted you +5 points in [Vitality], +10 points in [Agility], and -5 points in [Charisma].

  Species threshold reached, initiating species upgrade protocol.