The newly summoned Skeleton Warrior stood among the trees, looking almost exactly the same as before.
Tiny cracks covered its gray-white bones, several ribs were visibly damaged, and the longsword in its hand looked as though it had survived far too many battles.
If Kyle hadn’t already witnessed what these Skeleton Warriors could do, even he would have found it difficult to believe that something so close to falling apart could possess strength far beyond monsters of the same level.
He didn’t waste any more time examining its appearance and opened the summon’s status panel.
[Iron-rank Skeleton Warrior] [Level: 2] [Strength: 250] [Agility: 250] [Spirit: 250] [Vitality: 250] [Skills: None] Kyle’s eyes rested on the four attributes.
Two hundred and fifty.
At Level 1, a Skeleton Warrior’s base attributes had been fifteen points each.
After Total Enhancement took effect, they had all reached 150.
Now that Summon Skeleton Warrior had reached Level 2, the newly summoned warrior had leveled up with the skill, and its attributes had increased dramatically once again.
It still had no skills of its own, but with base attributes like these, its combat ability already far exceeded that of ordinary low-level awakened professionals.
Kyle turned his attention to the four Skeleton Warriors he had summoned earlier.
They had all been created while he was still Level 1.
He focused on one of them, and its information appeared.
[Iron-rank Skeleton Warrior] [Level: 2] [Strength: 250] [Agility: 250] [Spirit: 250] [Vitality: 250] [Skills: None] Kyle raised an eyebrow slightly.
His existing Skeleton Warriors had leveled up as well.
That saved him a great deal of trouble.
If older summons couldn’t grow along with the skill, then every time Kyle leveled up, he would eventually have to replace all of them.
Not only would that waste Spirit, but the older summons taking up space would gradually become useless.
Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.
As long as his summoning skill improved, the Skeleton Warriors he had already summoned would grow along with it.
There was no need to constantly replace them.
Kyle closed the status panel and looked at the five Skeleton Warriors standing before him.
At Level 1, their 150-point attributes had already been enough to deal with Level 4 Gray Wolves with ease.
Now that all four attributes had increased to 250, the monsters in this part of the trial zone posed even less of a threat.
There was no reason to remain here.
Before leaving, however, Kyle still had something to take care of.
He walked over to the three dead Gray Wolves and removed their fangs as required by his task.
He also checked the bodies for anything else worth carrying.
Low-level monsters inside the beginner trial zone generally weren’t worth much.
An intact hide could be sold, but Kyle had never learned how to skin monsters properly.
Trying to do it himself would take time, and whatever he ended up with probably wouldn’t be worth much anyway.
The fangs required for his task were far more convenient.
After putting them away, Kyle looked toward the deeper part of the forest.
Five Skeleton Warriors stood quietly behind him.
Instead of moving immediately, Kyle checked his Spirit.
After leveling up, it had fully recovered.
His total Spirit was also much higher than before.
Now that his Summoning Space had expanded from ten slots to twenty, there was no reason to leave most of it empty.
Still, Kyle had no intention of exhausting all his Spirit at once.
The beginner trial zone was protected, but that didn’t mean accidents were impossible.
The farther he went, the stronger the monsters would become.
Keeping some Spirit in reserve was safer than converting all of it into summons.
Kyle raised his hand.
A gray-black vortex appeared.
The familiar clicking of bones came from within as another Skeleton Warrior stepped out.
Then another.
Before long, several more gray-white figures had appeared among the trees.
They looked almost identical, with only the positions of the cracks in their bones and the damage to their swords setting them apart.
As they stood together beneath the shade, blue soul flames flickered inside their empty eye sockets, and even the air around them seemed to grow colder.
Looking at the small group forming in front of him, Kyle suddenly remembered what he had seen during his awakening.
Countless soul flames had appeared in the darkness.
Skeleton after skeleton had risen until an endless formation of undead stood before him.
At the time, Kyle hadn’t understood what that vision meant.
Now, he was beginning to.
A Necromancer’s true way of fighting had never been to stand on the front lines swinging a staff at monsters.
The undead were his weapons.
Of course, the handful of Skeleton Warriors around him was still far from being called an undead army.
There was no point thinking too far ahead.
Levels had to be gained one at a time.
Kyle gave the Skeleton Warriors their orders and continued deeper into the trial zone.
The farther he traveled, the fewer students he encountered.
Near the outer area, he could occasionally hear other groups talking or fighting.
Beyond the yellow boundary marker, however, the forest was mostly filled with the sound of wind moving through the leaves and the occasional clicking of his Skeleton Warriors’ bones.
Kyle didn’t keep every summon gathered around him.
Doing so might have been safe, but it would completely waste his advantage in numbers.
He kept two Skeleton Warriors nearby while sending the others out to search for monsters.
This time, however, he made sure they didn’t go too far.
The terrain here was much more complicated than in the outer area.
Trees, bushes, and slopes all blocked his vision.
If his summons traveled too far away, Kyle might not be able to tell what they had encountered in time.
At first, everything went smoothly.
A Skeleton Warrior on the left soon discovered a Level 3 Venom Lizard, and the fight ended almost immediately.
On the other side, two Skeleton Warriors encountered a Level 4 Gray Wolf with the same result.
Kill notifications appeared one after another, and Kyle’s experience continued to rise.
Meanwhile, he kept moving along the central route.
It was far more efficient than personally searching every part of the forest.
After traveling for a while, however, Kyle suddenly noticed that one of his Skeleton Warriors had stopped.
It hadn’t encountered a monster.
Nor had it been attacked.
It was simply standing in the distance, refusing to move any farther.
Kyle stopped and focused on the summon.
A notification appeared.
[Summon has reached the limit of the current control range.] Kyle considered the message.
So there was a distance limit.
That wasn’t surprising.
Most summoning classes couldn’t send their summons an unlimited distance away from the summoner.
Otherwise, a summoner could simply sit safely inside the city while sending creatures dozens of kilometers away to fight on their behalf.
Necromancers were apparently restricted by a similar rule.
Instead of immediately recalling the Skeleton Warrior, Kyle walked toward it.
Once the distance between them shortened, the Skeleton Warrior began moving again.
Just as he thought.
The limit wasn’t tied to a fixed area.
It was centered on him.
As Kyle moved, the area in which his summons could operate moved with him.
Once he understood that, he quickly adjusted his strategy.
Instead of sending the Skeleton Warriors endlessly in one direction, he had them spread out around the route he was taking.
Wherever Kyle went, they cleared the surrounding area.
It meant he couldn’t simply sit still and let them do everything, but it ensured that most monsters along his route wouldn’t be missed.
More importantly, he always remained close enough for his summons to return quickly.
If something unexpected happened, he wouldn’t be left without a single Skeleton Warrior nearby.
With his new approach settled, Kyle gradually increased his pace.
The monsters changed as he traveled deeper.
Fang Rats became increasingly rare.
In their place were Gray Wolves, Venom Lizards, Ironback Beetles, and other larger low-level monsters.
Their levels had also increased from one or two to three and four.
For the Level 2 Skeleton Warriors, however, the difference barely mattered.
With 250 points of Strength, every strike they delivered carried tremendous force.
Even monsters several times larger than a Fang Rat usually didn’t last long once those battered swords landed.
Kyle observed the battles as he continued forward.
He didn’t completely relax just because his summons held an overwhelming advantage.
Instead, he deliberately began paying attention to the behavior of different monsters.
Gray Wolves liked to circle around their targets and attack from the side.
Venom Lizards often hid among fallen leaves and bushes before striking when their prey came close.
Ironback Beetles had extremely hard shells that ordinary weapons struggled to penetrate, but their undersides were much more vulnerable.
The academy had taught all of this.
Seeing it happen in front of him, however, was completely different from reading it in a textbook.
A single sentence stating that Gray Wolves preferred to attack from the flank could determine whether a mage at the rear of a party was suddenly knocked to the ground in a real fight.
Theoretical knowledge wasn’t useless.
It was only after experiencing actual combat that Kyle truly understood why he had been taught those things.
He committed each detail to memory.
The monsters he faced in the future wouldn’t always be low-level creatures inside a beginner trial zone.
Building the habit of observing enemies now was far better than learning the lesson after entering the real wilderness.
After some time, a much louder disturbance came from the forest ahead and to the right.
Branches snapped one after another.
Then came a deep roar.
Two Skeleton Warriors that had been searching the area had already encountered something.
Kyle immediately headed toward them with the summons beside him.
After passing through a patch of bushes, he quickly saw what they were fighting.
A monster almost the size of an adult bull stood among the trees.
Its body was covered in coarse dark-brown fur, with a row of backward-pointing bone spikes running along its back.
Its thick front paws repeatedly dug into the soil.
[Ironspine Bear] [Level: 5] Finally, a Level 5 monster.
Two Skeleton Warriors had already taken positions on opposite sides of it.
There was a visible wound on the Ironspine Bear’s shoulder, and blood slowly ran through its thick fur.
Unlike the monsters that had fallen to a single blow earlier, however, this one was clearly much tougher.
The Ironspine Bear roared and swung one of its front paws.
One Skeleton Warrior failed to avoid the attack completely and took the blow directly to the chest.
Its gray-white body was sent flying, crashing through a patch of bushes before hitting the ground.
Kyle immediately looked toward it.
The Skeleton Warrior quickly climbed back to its feet.
Several new cracks had appeared across its ribs, but none of the bones had actually broken.
The blue soul flames in its eye sockets remained steady as well.
It could withstand a direct attack from a Level 5 monster.
The increase in Vitality was just as significant as the increase in its offensive attributes.
Kyle relaxed slightly.
But he had no intention of letting only two Skeleton Warriors slowly finish the fight.
This was real combat.
There was no reason to make things fair.
Numbers were one advantage he had no reason not to use.
“Attack.” The other Skeleton Warriors immediately joined the fight.
The Ironspine Bear had barely forced back the enemy in front of it when a damaged sword struck from the side.
It turned angrily, only for another attack to come from the opposite direction.
One sword.
Then another.
Then a third.
The Ironspine Bear kept turning, but it couldn’t defend against attacks from several directions at once.
A little over ten seconds later, its massive body finally lost its strength and collapsed heavily onto the ground.
[Ironspine Bear successfully killed.] [Experience gained.] Kyle didn’t immediately move on.
He first walked over to the Skeleton Warrior that had been knocked away and carefully examined the cracks across its chest.
It was injured, but not seriously.
Kyle remembered the description of his Summoning Space.
Injured summons could gradually recover while stored inside it.
With a thought, he returned the damaged Skeleton Warrior to the Summoning Space.
Sure enough, a slow recovery indicator soon appeared beside its status.
That was useful.
At least he wouldn’t have to replace a Skeleton Warrior every time one of them was injured.
After collecting the useful materials from the Ironspine Bear, Kyle checked his experience again.
He wasn’t far from the next level.
There was no reason to stay here.
He continued deeper into the forest with the remaining Skeleton Warriors.
As time passed, kill notifications appeared continuously, and his experience gradually approached the limit.
Reaching the next level required noticeably more experience than before.
But Kyle also had more summons now, which allowed him to search a wider area at once.
As a result, his overall efficiency hadn’t dropped much.
When another Level 4 Gray Wolf fell beneath a Skeleton Warrior’s sword, the familiar glow finally rose around Kyle again.
[Level increased.] [Current Level: 3.] Kyle stopped.
The energy from leveling flowed through his body, and the Spirit he had spent earlier recovered.
Instead of moving on immediately, he opened his status panel to check the changes.
His Summoning Space had expanded again, and Summon Skeleton Warrior had reached Level 3 along with him.
Looking at his fully restored Spirit, Kyle quickly made a decision.
More summons.
Dark vortices began appearing among the trees one after another.
New Skeleton Warriors stepped out.
What had originally been only a handful of gray-white figures gradually became a larger group.
They stood silently around Kyle.
No breathing.
No voices.
Only clusters of blue soul flames flickering among the trees.
Kyle didn’t drain all his Spirit.
He always kept enough in reserve to deal with unexpected situations.
Once his Spirit recovered, he summoned more.
Repeating the process gradually increased the number of Skeleton Warriors under his command.
As their numbers grew, Kyle adjusted his formation again.
Some searched ahead.
Others spread out along the left and right sides.
Several always remained close to him.
No matter which direction a monster approached from, reaching Kyle became increasingly difficult.
And the monsters he had once needed to search for himself were now usually discovered by his summons long before he reached them.
Time passed quietly as he continued forward.
Kyle barely noticed how long he had been inside the trial zone.
It wasn’t until the glow of another level-up surrounded him that he stopped to check the time.
Several hours had passed since he entered.
[Current Level: 4.] Kyle looked at the new level without showing much excitement.
His leveling speed was certainly faster than he had originally expected.
What interested him more was the steadily increasing number of summons around him.
After reaching Level 4, the attributes of his Skeleton Warriors had increased again.
Ordinary Level 3 and Level 4 monsters could barely slow them down now.
Even when they occasionally encountered Level 5 monsters, several Skeleton Warriors attacking together could end the fight quickly.
Kyle didn’t remain in the same area.
He took out his map and compared it with the terrain around him.
The true deeper section of the beginner trial zone lay ahead.
Most monsters there were Level 5 or above, with Level 6 and even Level 7 creatures occasionally appearing.
Newly awakened students rarely came this far on their first day.
Kyle looked ahead.
The forest was noticeably darker between the trees, and low beastly roars occasionally came from the distance.
If he had just entered the trial zone, he might have chosen to remain in the outer area a little longer.
There was no need for that now.
Low-level monsters were no longer providing enough experience.
If his Skeleton Warriors could handle stronger targets, then moving forward was the obvious choice.
Kyle put the map away.
“Let’s go.” At his command, the nearby Skeleton Warriors turned their heads at the same time.
A moment later, gray-white figures moved through the forest and spread out ahead of him.
Kyle walked among them.
It wasn’t long before the first kill notification from the deeper area appeared.
[Level 5 Frostmane Wolf successfully killed.] [Experience gained.] Another followed soon afterward.
[Level 6 Nightspotted Panther successfully killed.] [Experience gained.] Kyle kept walking.
Compared with the Level 1 and Level 2 monsters near the outer area, Level 5 and Level 6 monsters provided significantly more experience.
Yet his Skeleton Warriors weren’t taking much longer to kill them.
As long as he continued deeper, his leveling speed could increase even further.
The Skeleton Warriors around him continued advancing.
There were far more of them now than the four or five he had started with.
Gray-white skeletons moved between trees and bushes.
Blue soul flames appeared and disappeared in the distance, while the clicking of bones occasionally came from different directions.
It was still far from a true undead army.
But it was beginning to look like one.
Watching them move through the forest, Kyle suddenly remembered something Lia had once told him.
It had been after the first time she returned from outside the city injured.
There had still been blood on her clothes and a bandage wrapped around her arm, but she had looked at Kyle seriously and told him one thing.
Never assume the danger is gone just because you have the advantage.
Kyle hadn’t awakened a class at the time.
He had simply remembered her words.
Now that he was standing deep inside the trial zone himself, he was beginning to understand what she had meant.
The battles here were easy for his Skeleton Warriors.
But this was still only a beginner trial zone.
The levels of the monsters were controlled.
Patrol teams were nearby, and if anything truly unusual happened, he still had an emergency badge.
The real wilderness wouldn’t have anyone clearing dangers in advance.
Nor would it guarantee that every monster he encountered would be within a level range he could handle.
So the ease with which he was progressing now didn’t mean he was already strong enough.
Kyle glanced at his level.
Level 4.
He was still far from where he needed to be if he wanted to enter Aetherlan Royal Academy.
His goal had never been to dominate a beginner trial zone.
Kyle looked ahead and continued walking.
Another kill notification appeared.
His experience bar moved forward again.
[Level: 4] [Current Experience: 99.99%] Only a tiny amount remained.
Kyle had barely finished checking it when a heavy impact suddenly came from deeper in the forest.
A Skeleton Warrior searching ahead failed to send back a kill notification for the first time.
Instead, a completely different message appeared.
[Skeleton Warrior has been attacked.] Kyle stopped.
His calm gaze immediately turned toward the forest ahead.
Several nearby Skeleton Warriors turned at the same time, the blue soul flames in their eye sockets flickering sharply.
Whatever was up ahead…
hadn’t gone down in one hit.