The road to Virellia was paved in dark stone veined with faintly glowing mana circuits that pulsed like a heartbeat beneath translucent panels. Carriages without horses glided past on embedded rails, powered by crystal cores that hummed softly as they passed. Khan kept to the side, hood drawn low, aware of the stares his undead thrall attracted. The Carrion Husk shuffled behind him, its movements jerky but obedient, eyes dim beneath the hooded cloak he had scavenged from a discarded bundle near the cemetery gates.
At the city's perimeter stood an arched checkpoint of black iron reinforced with rune-etched plates. Guards in segmented armor scanned arrivals with handheld devices resembling metallic tablets inscribed with floating glyphs. Mana-tech, the system informed him. Detection arrays calibrated to identify hostile enchantments and illegal summoning contracts.
Khan slowed. His thrall's presence tugged at his senses, the maintenance cost nibbling at his mana reserves. If the guards detected an unregistered undead, he would face fines at best, imprisonment or execution at worst. Necromancers were tolerated in Eryndor, but heavily regulated. Death was a resource, and the state did not allow just anyone to exploit it freely.
He dismissed the thrall.
The Mana Thread snapped, and the Carrion Husk collapsed into inert flesh. He felt a slight sting of loss as the connection severed, but the corpse remained intact. The system indicated he could rebind it within twenty-four hours without additional material cost. Useful.
He dragged the body into a drainage ditch beneath the road and covered it with debris before approaching the gate alone.
"Name and class," one guard demanded, eyes flicking over him.
"Khan. Necromancer." He didn't bother lying. The system signature would reveal it anyway.
The guard's expression tightened almost imperceptibly. He tapped the tablet, and a translucent scan washed over Khan's body. The sensation was like cold water running through his veins.
"Level?"
"Two."
A faint snort from the second guard. "Fresh."
Khan met his gaze evenly. "Everyone starts somewhere."
The first guard handed him a thin metallic band. "Register your thralls within city limits. Unauthorized undead will be purged. You're restricted from the Noble District and the Central Spire unless contracted. Break those terms and the Ashen Wardens will deal with you."
Khan slid the band onto his wrist. It tightened automatically, projecting a faint interface visible only to him. A registry slot for summoned entities blinked empty.
"Understood."
Virellia swallowed him whole the moment he stepped past the gate. The streets were alive with a blend of medieval stonework and modern innovation. Market stalls sold enchanted trinkets beside kiosks offering mana-charged batteries. Overhead, crystal-powered trams glided along elevated tracks. Massive towers loomed in the distance, their surfaces etched with glowing runes that regulated energy flow through the city. He caught glimpses of constructs—golems of brass and bone—hauling cargo under the supervision of robed overseers.
The air smelled of spice, ozone, and faint decay.
Khan kept moving, eyes sharp. He needed money, shelter, and information. Preferably in that order. A glowing sign caught his attention: Guild of Independent Contractors. Beneath it, smaller text scrolled across a mana-display board listing available jobs. Pest extermination. Sewer clearing. Graveyard cleansing. The last one made him pause.
He entered.
Inside, the guild hall buzzed with low conversation. Adventurers of various classes clustered around tables, armor clinking softly. A receptionist sat behind a counter embedded with a crystal display.
"Looking for work?" she asked without glancing up.
"Yes."
She slid a slate toward him. "Register. Low-tier jobs only until evaluation."
He pressed his palm to the slate. It hummed, syncing with his system signature. A list of assignments populated.
Graveyard Cleansing – Outer Ward.
Reward: 30 silver.
Threat Level: Low.
Note: Minor undead manifestations disrupting maintenance crews.
Khan almost laughed at the irony. "I'll take this one."
She raised an eyebrow when she saw the selection. "You're aware you'll be eliminating undead, not recruiting them."
"I'm aware."
The Outer Ward cemetery was smaller and more orderly than the one he had awakened in. Workers stood at a distance, unwilling to approach the restless dead. Three skeletal figures wandered between graves, animated by unstable mana surges from damaged warding stones.
Khan assessed them with Soul Sight. Unlike his thrall, these skeletons were fueled by ambient energy, not bound by contract. That made them erratic but also vulnerable.
He summoned the Carrion Husk again, reestablishing the Mana Thread. The familiar drain settled over him. "Distract," he commanded.
The Husk lurched forward, engaging the nearest skeleton. Bone clashed against decaying flesh. Khan circled wide, heart hammering. He was not strong enough to overpower them directly. He had to be precise.
He focused on Mana Thread, extending it beyond his thrall toward one of the rogue skeletons. The ability strained, resisting his control. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he attempted to latch onto the unstable core animating the bones.
[Mana Insufficient for Direct Override.]
He clicked his tongue and shifted tactics. If he couldn't dominate it alive, he would have to dismantle it. He grabbed a rusted shovel left by a fleeing worker and swung at the skeleton's knee joint. The bone cracked but didn't break. The skeleton retaliated, a jagged arm raking across his shoulder. Pain flared.
He gritted his teeth and swung again, targeting the weakened joint. This time the leg snapped, and the skeleton collapsed. Before it could reassemble, he jammed the shovel blade into its skull, disrupting the mana core. The green light flickered and died.
[Skeletal Remnant destroyed.]
[Experience gained: +18.]
Behind him, the Carrion Husk lost an arm but managed to pin the second skeleton long enough for Khan to smash its spine. The third proved harder, faster than the others. It drove him backward until his heel caught on a stone. He fell, the skeleton looming overhead. Instinct overrode fear. He released his Husk entirely, funneling every remaining drop of mana into Raise Lesser Undead on the freshly destroyed skeleton at his side.
The bones convulsed and snapped together, green fire reigniting in their sockets. Now bound to him, the reanimated skeleton lunged at its former companion, grappling it long enough for Khan to scramble up and crush its skull with the shovel.
Silence fell over the graveyard.
He stood amid scattered bones and one partially dismembered Carrion Husk, chest heaving. His mana bar hovered near empty. His body ached. He was bleeding from three separate cuts. Victory felt less like triumph and more like survival by inches.
Notifications chimed.
[Level Up!]
Necromancer Lv.3
Skill Unlocked: Bone Mend (Lv.1).
Free Points: 3.
He allocated two points to Intelligence and one to Vitality without hesitation. He needed more mana and slightly better survivability. The increases were modest, barely perceptible, but they were real.
He examined his new skeletal thrall. Unlike the Husk, it was purely bone, movements sharper but still limited by his low-level control. Two underlings now. Not an army. Not yet.
The guild paid him without enthusiasm. Thirty silver coins clinked into his pouch. It wasn't much, but it was enough for a cheap room in the lower district and basic supplies.
That night, sitting in a cramped inn room illuminated by a single mana-lamp, Khan stared at his reflection in a cracked mirror. He looked older than nineteen now, not in years but in the weight behind his eyes. He had fought and nearly died twice in one day. He had felt the fragile thread of his new life stretch thin.
He flexed his fingers, sensing the faint tug of his thralls resting in an abandoned shed outside the city where he had hidden them to avoid registry fees. He could feel their emptiness, their obedience.
"I'm still weak," he murmured. "But I'm not helpless."
Eryndor was vast. Virellia was only one city in one province. There would be dungeons, battlefields, forgotten ruins humming with lost technology and old magic. Places where death lingered thick in the air. Places where a necromancer could grow.
Khan lay back on the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling as the mana-lamp flickered softly. He had no intention of becoming a savior. He would take contracts that paid well, eliminate threats that benefited him, and avoid entanglements that didn't. If people needed a villain to blame, they would find one regardless. If they needed a hero, they could look elsewhere.
He would become something else entirely.