Chapter 31 Dispose
Zavier wanted to get some information about the person who had hired this kind of professional to get him out of the way.
In fact, as soon as he cast his illusion, the target had lost all its breath, which was not what he had intended at all. The killer had come prepared for such an outcome whether knowingly or unknowingly, Zavier was unsure of.
Zavier couldn't find out the true reason for which he had been assassinated but he had come to know one thing; the information regarding the hiring party was even more important than the life of the assassin.
The party couldn't just have been someone ordinary; otherwise, they wouldn't have gone to such lengths to prevent an outcome where their identity came out in the open.
The mental bomb must have been a failsafe device in case the assassin failed in his job and ended up in his hands.
Zavier couldn't help but be curious about the identity of his enemies. Who could have made such thorough plans just to get him out of the way? Was he even worth it?
Up to a few days back, everyone knew that Zavier was only a wastrel who couldn't even do magic. What was it about him that made his enemies want to kill him?
He had nothing in his hands and had no ability. What could they possibly want from him? It was only possible that he was just in the way and the real target was someone else, maybe even his family members. But there was nothing to base his deductions on.
The assassin hadn't left any clues at all and his client had wiped all traces of himself. There was no way Zavier could reach the mastermind in the short term. But he was sure that there would be another attempt at his life very soon and there would be another chance to find out more.
Until then, he could only patiently wait.
The next thing on his agenda was the disposal of the two bodies lying underneath his bed. He couldn't just tell his family regarding the assassination attempt. It would be equivalent to announcing to the world about the incident that had taken place in their house.
Zavier wanted to keep the news under wraps especially until the mastermind behind the scenes tried to assassinate him once again. Talking to his family would have alerted the enemies hiding in the shadows.
He needed them to try again and if they knew that Zavier was already alert to their attempts, they might not send someone else.
Zavier needed to know his enemy the most in the current situation. For now, he was playing blind with no sense of direction and no trace of his enemies.
Since the assassin had taken extensive care in not revealing himself to his family, he could be sure of one thing that the killer only wanted to kill him specifically and had no grudge against his family.
Zavier too grew curious. He wanted to know the identity of the mastermind very badly. Since, he didn't have any leads at all; he wanted to figure it out slowly on his own. He wanted to catch the bastard with his own hands.
But before that, he had to take care of the bodies in front of him so as to not alarm anyone, especially his own family.
*ding*
[User has successfully reached Mesmer level 3.]
[Mental strength has increased by a considerable margin. User is now able to handle low level illusion spells more proficiently.]
[The effect of low-level illusions will now be more pronounced and the duration of effect will increase.]
[The probability of success in casting low level illusions will be very high unless the mental strength of the target is higher than that of the user.]
...
...
[User's mental strength has increased and has reached the minimum standard required to activate two new systems.]
[The number of clones that can be created without harming the user have now increased to 4.]
[User can now create two additional clones.]
Zavier who was otherwise lost in thought with a serious and gloomy look could only be brought back to the world through a series of such happy system messages. He could finally make use of two new systems.
This was the kind of good news nobody could ignore. Zavier too felt like jumping around like a kid and telling everyone on the block but he could do nothing but restrain himself.
He kept telling himself that it wasn't time yet. He had to hold it in for a little longer. Just a little longer.
Thanks to the new messages, Zavier was no longer depressed thinking about the bodies that he had to dispose of.
He carefully went through all the messages once again just to be sure that what he had read was right and he really could activate two new systems at once.
He was not ready to explode yet.
Once he had made sure that it was true, he got to thinking, what system he should choose.
He thought back to his conversation with the cosmic consciousness and the systems that he had been told about. He remembered there being a vampire system and a werewolf system but rejected them both since these systems would impose more restrictions on him.
He would then have to hide his identity even further. He would have to risk being ousted once such an identity was revealed.
Even if he turned to these systems, it would have to be once he had enough strength to carry himself with pride and once, he knew who he was fighting against. 𝑓𝒓𝚎e𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯𝘰𝐯𝒆𝑙.c𝚘m
This was not an easy decision at all. Out of all the different paths, he had to choose only two. Mage and Mesmer systems had been very prominent to him the last time because they were both flashy, but this time the choice was not as easy.
[User is advised to activate the Necromancer system to handle the current situation.]
[User can then have a storage space for corpses in the Necromancer system that can be used to dispose of the corpses.]
Since Zavier had no way out of the situation and he was unable to decide which one of the systems he should choose, he decided to go ahead with the system's advice.
Ever since he had acquired the Multi-system, its advice had never gone wrong. Zavier chose to trust it.
"System, I want to activate the Necromancer system."
[User has successfully activated the Necromancer system.]
[User now has access to Necromancy skills ranging from controlling, manipulating, enhancing, and reanimating corpses using undead energy.]
[User's mana will change its attributes to undead energy upon the use of the Necromancer system. Undead energy is used by Necromancers to cast their skills and to control their corpses.]
[User can now control any corpse that was weaker than the user at the time of death. The corpse will retain all of its abilities that it had before its death including any skills that it knew. The corpse will stop decaying once the user marks it as his own by using undead energy.]
[The range of corpses that can be controlled increases with increase in undead energy and skill proficiency.]
[User has learned Corpse Identification.]
[User will be able to learn information about the deceased by using his undead energy to mark them.]
[Conditions of use: User must be in physical contact with the corpse.]
[The stronger the corpse, the lower will be the probability of a successful Corpse Identification. Some traits might be hidden if undead energy does not meet the minimum requirement.]
[The probability of success can be increased by increasing the undead energy of the user or by increasing skill proficiency.]
[User has learned Corpse Repair.]
[User now has the ability to repair any damage to an owned corpse, provided that any part of the body is not completely destroyed or irrecoverable. It is impossible to regenerate missing body parts.]
[Conditions of use: A corpse owned by the user.]
[...]
Zavier was ecstatic to learn that the corpses could even retain their abilities. To be honest, whenever he thought of necromancers, he saw them as leading a horde of skeleton-like corpses who moved slowly like a zombie horde and had no strength whatsoever other than the fact that they were an undying mob that had strength in numbers.
This had blown away his mind. The corpses he controlled could even imitate what they learned in their lives. This was much more impressive.
Zavier put his hand on the corpse of the assassin to use Corpse Identification.
[Complete Low-level Corpse
Condition: Excellent
Damage: None
Skills: Stealth(D), Vanish(E), Poison Resistance(D), Mana Sense(F), Physical Strength(E)
Owner: None]
Zavier was somewhat disappointed since he couldn't find out any real information about the assassin. Of course, the system wasn't all knowing and could only tell the information regarding the skills and the condition of the corpse.
But the disappointment vanished in a puff of smoke when he noticed one particular skill of the assassin.
[Stealth(D): The user is able to hide his presence to a great extent from the senses of other individuals. The skill can be interrupted if the target is attacked.]
It had to be known that an ability like that was not very common. It was easy to understand how the assassin had managed to infiltrate into his house and had remained undetected despite the presence of the transcendental genius Valerie.
Stealth was a rare ability to come by among ordinary mages. This corpse was an absolute treasure for Zavier at his current strength level just because of this skill.
The alphabet next to the skills referred to the rarity and the strength of the skill. And the Stealth ability had been marked as D rank. It was quite formidable.
Other than Stealth, there wasn't much that the assassin was good at. The D-rank Poison Resistance could have been a good ability if the assassin was alive but the corpse having such an ability was possibly the worst combination.
User of the corpse was marked as 'none' which meant that Zavier could take control of the corpse.
Before he could overcome the jubilation brought to him by the Necromancer system, Zavier was once again *ding*ed by the system.
[User can also set the mode of control for each corpse to either Remote control or Automatic control.]
"What's that?"
[Automatic mode is just like how your clones act in individual mode. They will keep following the last command of the user until they are either destroyed or the undead energy provided by the user runs out.]
[In remote mode, the user can control each of their actions but the undead energy will be required to move and cast their skills continuously.]
[The corpses will only be prone to physical attacks and bodily destruction. Soul and mental attacks will have no effect on them because of their soulless bodies, irrespective of whether they are in Automatic or Remote mode.]
[User can also repair a corpse after it has been damaged by external factors provided body parts are not missing or completely destroyed.]
After he had understood what the system had been telling him, there was only a single question buzzing around in his mind like a lonely housefly.
"What about my own corpse? Does that one retain its abilities too? Can it be controlled?"
[User can control the corpse of a clone but there will be no shared consciousness since the corpse will lack its soul to make that connection. It will be just like any other corpse.]
[The User's corpse will also be able to retain some of its skills that can be used through corpse manipulation.]
Zavier was reassured after he heard this. After all, the wastage of such a corpse was a big deal. The corpse of a rank 2 illusionist was a big deal for him at the moment. It was like an extra helper.
He marked both the corpses and released some of his undead energy in them to mark his ownership of the corpses.
Only then could he drag them into the system storage provided to him by the Necromancer system. The only drawback of the system was that the storage space could only be used for storing corpses.
He waved his hand and the two corpses vanished into thin air.
[Two corpses stored successfully.]
[Total number of corpses available: 2]