Thirty minutes later, they were done digging.
While the undead worked efficiently, it wasn't exactly fast, and in the end it only managed to unearth one corpse while Darion unearthed three.
Tsk… Tsk…
He looked at the undead, who stood still, awaiting another command.
The whole reason he had commanded the skeleton to help was so the workload would be easier and they'd be done in what would feel like no time. But the undead wasn't that fast, and even if he waited for it to finish unearthing one corpse before commanding it to start another, that would take over an hour.
With a shrug, he decided at least it had done something.
Parts of his body ached, but a good night's rest would sort that out.
Time to revive these corpses.
He looked at the four skeletons laid out on the ground. They varied in shape and size, and he could only hope they'd be at least decent compared to the first one he'd raised.
He turned to the standing undead and willed it, through thought alone, into his undead inventory.
The moment he made the thought, he felt a slight connection to it, and then it slowly dissolved into dust of green and black and was gone.
Darion walked over to the nearest corpse, knelt with one knee raised, and placed his hand on its chest.
"REVIVE!"
The same thing as before happened — the black-green lines of light spreading from the eye sockets down through the ribcage, the faint glow settling in the skull, the eyes lighting up green, the jaw parting slightly. The skeleton rose and knelt before him, face to the ground.
Darion smiled. It worked again.
From what he knew, at least from what he had read, many Necromancers didn't have a hundred percent chance at reviving a corpse. Some revived and some failed, it was a matter of luck. But here he was, reviving two corpses in a row!
Well, his system hadn't mentioned anything about failures in reviving corpses… Maybe that didn't apply here? Or maybe it would later?
Or…
He suddenly remembered a line from the notifications he had received when he first awakened his class:
[You may bind only those who have died within your domain or beneath your authority.
Has a possibility of changing in the future.]
There was actually a really large restriction here, though it had a possibility of changing in the future.
He could only revive knights who had died within his domain or under his authority. Knights who were his.
Man, he hadn't even thought about this restriction before.
That meant if he went to battle and happened to kill a very powerful and skilled warrior: the kind who could easily take down twenty-five of his men without much difficulty, he wouldn't be able to revive them?
Imagine losing something as valuable as that when you had the ability to have it because of a restriction?
Crazy stuff!
And even though it had a possibility of changing in the future, allowing him to revive any random corpse, right now, this was the difficulty he was facing. So his hundred percent success rate at reviving these corpses was… valid. They were all his dead to begin with.
Darion went ahead and revived the next three corpses immediately. He didn't even bother checking their status screens until every single one of them was on their knees, eyes to the floor.
Then he checked.
The first one:
[Undead Knight – Rotten Tier]
Former Rank: Percvale Infantry
Combat Instinct: Preserved (Fragmented)
Strength: 8
Endurance: 6
Loyalty: 51
Pain Response: None
Morale: Irrelevant
Special Trait: Tireless (Does not fatigue)
Weakness: Core Destruction (Skull / Spine)
Darion was slightly disappointed. Lowest tier, and the strength and endurance were both poor. Though he should have expected something like this, while the first undead he had raised, the one at Rust Tier, had bones that were noticeably large, like they had belonged to someone healthy and well-built, this Rotten Tier one was looking like the bones of a malnourished knight. Slender and average height, the skeleton of someone who hadn't been particularly skilled or strong in life.
The second one:
[Undead Knight – Decaying Tier]
Former Rank: Percvale Infantry
Combat Instinct: Preserved (Fragmented)
Strength: 10
Endurance: 10
Loyalty: 55
Pain Response: None
Morale: Irrelevant
Special Trait: Tireless (Does not fatigue)
Weakness: Core Destruction (Skull / Spine)
'A Decaying Tier,' Darion said, stroking his beardless chin softly.
Still below Rust, so it wasn't something he could be particularly proud about. But at least it was better than the Rotten Tier he had just gotten before it. He could only hope the next one would be better.
The third one:
[Undead Knight – Rotten Tier]
Former Rank: Percvale Infantry
Combat Instinct: Preserved (Fragmented)
Strength: 1
Endurance: 15
Loyalty: 53
Pain Response: None
Morale: Irrelevant
Special Trait: Tireless (Does not fatigue)
Weakness: Core Destruction (Skull / Spine)
"What the hell!" Darion said out loud.
It stunned him more than he had expected.
1…
1!
ONE!?
The strength of this undead was 1? It would be absolutely useless in battle: dead again before the fight had even properly started.
But wait…
The endurance was at 15! That was actually high compared to the others. Was that why the strength was so low?
Though what good was endurance with no strength behind it? You had to be able to hit something before you could worry about lasting through a fight. An undead with 1 strength and 15 endurance was just a skeleton that could stand there and take a beating for a long time before falling over.
Not exactly what he needed on a battlefield.
The last one:
[Undead Knight – Rust Tier]
Former Rank: Percvale Infantry
Combat Instinct: Preserved (Fragmented)
Strength: 13
Endurance: 14
Loyalty: 70
Pain Response: None
Morale: Irrelevant
Special Trait: Tireless (Does not fatigue)
Weakness: Core Destruction (Skull / Spine)
'Not bad… not bad.'
Two Rust Tiers out of five wasn't terrible. Though Darion already found himself hoping he could upgrade his undead beyond Rust at some point. There had to be something better waiting above it, something with a more respectable name too, hopefully.