Eren started living Goro’s life in a trance.
He was digesting all his memories, experiences, elemental attainments, class-specific nuances, weapon comprehensions, and spells. He was removing Goro’s influence from all that was his, turning them into his own experiences.
The death element.
This was the element Eren had no prior knowledge of. He had never fought a necromancer in his previous life. Death element wielders in other classes were also very rare. Thus, the introduction of this element was a completely fresh start for the butcher.
Eren continued to live Goro’s life in his mind while slowly building up his foundation in the element. Once that was done, he started absorbing class-specific nuances and spells. He discarded his day-to-day mundane memories and other experiences he had no use for, retaining only the most useful ones he could make use of.
When he opened his eyes, the butcher felt like he had lived an entire life as a necromancer. His blurred vision started getting clearer as he started looking around himself. It had been quite some time since he had killed Goro it seemed. Because he could already feel the morning sun’s presence in the sky.
“How long have I been out?”
Eren asked Alephee who had been waiting for him to wake up from his trance at a distance. She was sitting on a branch of a tall redwood tree. Argo was with her, looking like an ordinary eagle. The demon beast had closed his eyes, indicating that he was taking a nap.
“Not too long, I would say. It seems you managed to refine Goro’s experiences to perfection. You only took 11 hours this time, which is understandable since you didn’t know anything about Goro’s element.”
Alephee approved of Eren taking his time to do things right. The butcher smiled before stretching his palms in front of him. He concentrated and channeled his death mana. In the next moment, an azure blue smoke spread over his palm before coating his hands.
Eren disappeared from his position and appeared near a tree. He touched its trunk with his death-element-coated hands to see how it affected the surroundings.
The tree began to die as soon as it was exposed to a faint amount of death element. It first withered and lost all its leaves before its trunk began to shrink. The tree died completely in a few moments before the wood started withering as well.
‘The death element can be viewed as an Ether-subclass element. However, unlike Krista’s or Rupen’s elements, the death element allows more freedom in terms of its applicability.’
Eren started mumbling to himself as he watched the effects of his death element with his own eyes. Goro’s comprehension of the element and his class was not enough for Eren. He needed to make them his own and draw his own conclusions to further his progress in the field. Thus, he started from the beginning.
‘Death and life are two sides of the same coin. The same can be said for the death element and the life element as well. These concepts are as vague as evening fog and yet as real as morning dew.
The five great elements and the hybrid elements that are born from them are all part of nature. The aspect and elemental fusions between these elements, therefore, are also part of nature. Thus, they are subject to the laws and restrictions of the world.’
Eren looked at the azure blue smoke covering his palms and thought to himself. He then closed his eyes and concentrated. He spread his mana sense to sense the death element around him. He was shocked to see that it was so prevalent in the surroundings.
‘Every beginning has an end. And every end paves the way for a new beginning.
The one that is born has to die someday. One that is dead will come back to life someday in some other form.
Just like every other element, the death element is also part of nature. It is part of every living being and the dead. It is present in everything that is alive, dead, and everything in between.’
Eren decided to summon his own undead using Goro’s spells. He spread his hands and spread the azure blue smoke that was coming from his hand into his vicinity.
In the next moment, Eren managed to locate the residual mana signatures of people that had died last night. He turned these residual signatures into ethereal shells before injecting them with his death-element mana. A distinct mana pulse spread as Eren managed to summon his first batch of the undead.
Eren was very fascinated by his first batch of the undead. They looked exactly like the undead Goro used to summon. A few of them were Adepts. And the mob undead was mostly E-Rank and below. The butcher had also inadvertently summoned some rankless beings that were no different from powerless zombies.
Eren’s undead looked more responsive than Goro’s though. It was as if the butcher had already made a bit of progress on his path as a necromancer. The butcher was expecting quick progress like this from his Expert rank victim. Otherwise, the extra efforts he had put into slaying a C-Ranker would have gone to waste.
The undead summoned by Eren growled at anything and everything alive, including their summoner. They waited for his order, ready to die once again so that they could enjoy the peace of eternal slumber and solitude once again.
The butcher started walking through his summons. He observed them using his normal senses, mana sense, and soul sense. He started understanding more concepts about his new element and class while doing it.
‘Those who are perfectly alive will have the life and death elements in their bodies in balance. Those who have died completely will have their own equilibrium.
The unusual happens when someone breaks the balance using external forces, such as introducing life or death elements into the equation. The cycle of life and death is affected at that point.
If the scale tips in favor of the life element, a person lives fast and dies soon. When the scale gets tipped toward the death element, they will die fast and come back to life in another form.
The undead!’
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