Just as Arnold was reminiscing, the Spell on Edmond’s side was nearing completion.
The magic power circulated along a specific trajectory, ultimately forming an invisible vortex at the corpse’s skull.
The soul that had not yet completely dissipated from within the corpse gradually coalesced under the suction force generated by the vortex.
“Is it going to succeed?”
Just as Edmond felt hopeful, the vortex suddenly shattered, and the soul being drawn in dispersed once again.
It failed.
Edmond’s face turned pale at this moment; casting a Skeleton Resurrection cost a great deal of Mental Power.
Given his current condition, he could cast it at most three times at once; after three times, he would have to perform Meditation to recover.
“Failed?”
Noticing the commotion, Arnold spoke with a smile, his tone devoid of any reproach.
Edmond nodded, then began to summarize the experience of his recent failure.
The difficulty of this Spell was indeed much higher than Mage Hand and Ghost Fireball.
The Spell’s casting process was several times more complex, and it required constant maintenance until the soul was completely fused together.
And this was only the first step; there were many equally complex steps to follow.
For Edmond, who was just an ordinary person a few days ago, the learning difficulty of this Spell was indeed very high.
Fortunately, even if the Skeleton Resurrection failed, as long as the soul inside the corpse had not suffered damage, it could be cast repeatedly.
After resting for a moment, Edmond began to cast Skeleton Resurrection on the corpse once again.
As expected, it failed again this time.
However, it was not without gains for Edmond; every failure allowed him to accumulate a certain amount of experience, and his next casting of the Spell would become more proficient.
After finishing three Skeleton Resurrection casts, Edmond had to stop to perform Meditation to recover his overly depleted Mental Power.
Arnold walked over to his side and began to offer some of his own advice.
Although his talent was much lower than Edmond’s, he had, after all, been a Necromancer for over thirty years and had ample experience with Skeleton Resurrection.
Benefiting from his extremely high affinity for Necrotic Magic, Edmond quickly fully recovered his Mental Power through Meditation.
After recovering, he began to practice Skeleton Summoning again.
Just like that, whenever Edmond’s Mental Power was exhausted, he would perform Meditation, and whenever his Mental Power was restored, he would continue practicing.
A day passed quickly; Edmond had attempted Skeleton Summoning over fifty times in total, without a single success.
However, Edmond did not feel overly discouraged, as Arnold had told him that the learning difficulty of this Spell was very high.
At night, Edmond lay on his bed without immediately starting Meditation; he began to summarize the experience of his failed Skeleton Summoning attempts during the day.
Finally, he simply got up and went to the desk, recording these experiences down.
After finishing this task, he lay back down on the bed and began to meditate.
In the following time, Edmond devoted almost all his spare time to practicing Skeleton Summoning, staying in the basement to practice the whole time.
Seven days passed, and Edmond had already made significant progress.
However, after hundreds of practices, that corpse had suffered great damage, and the soul, which had already dissipated significantly within the body, had completely vanished under the continuous tugging.
Now, this corpse could no longer be used as material for resurrecting undead.
Edmond felt a bit guilty about this, as he knew it was very troublesome for Arnold to obtain a corpse.
Having stayed here for so long, Arnold had long since dug up all the surrounding Graveyards clean; to obtain another corpse, he would have to go further afield to search.
That would bring more danger, as a Necromancer was not exactly a positive image in the eyes of others.
Although the number of mages in this world was small, they did exist after all.
Arnold, however, did not have much of a reaction; after all, he himself had consumed over thirty corpses before finally successfully summoning a skeleton.
So he had long been prepared.
After warning Edmond not to run around, he hurried out with four zombies to search for corpses.
Although zombies looked extremely disgusting, covered in rotting flesh from head to toe, they were still a bit more convenient compared to skeletons.
As long as they were wrapped up tightly, they could still be hidden well, though their movements were a bit stiff.
After Arnold left, only Edmond and those undead remained in the small building.
Before leaving, Arnold had given those undead instructions to stay in place and not move.
Because as the distance changed, it would become increasingly difficult to convey instructions via the Mental Contract, and since the undead basically lacked intelligence, Arnold could only give instructions this way.
Edmond continued to the basement, and looking at the dense crowd of undead around him, he walked up to the zombie nearest to him.
The zombie looked like a severely rotted corpse, with flesh in many places having fallen off directly, revealing the white bones underneath.
This appearance was indeed disgusting to behold.
Looking at the blue Soul Fire faintly burning in the zombie’s eyes before him, Edmond couldn’t help but think of what his teacher had said before leaving.
“The undead do not have much intelligence and can only accept simple commands, so even after you succeed in resurrecting undead later, do not rely on them too much.”
“Striving to study other Spells is the true path.”
Edmond did not quite agree with these words in his heart.
Because through these days of understanding, he had roughly grasped what kind of things the undead were.
Strictly speaking, the undead were another form of life, just opposite to the form of the living.
This was also the reason why the undead created by a Necromancer would not disappear after the Necromancer died.
Because they were already real life forms and did not exist by relying on the Necromancer.
Since they were undead creatures, how could they possibly lack intelligence?
It was just because the undead level of skeletons and zombies was too low.
Of course, this was just Edmond’s guess.
Shaking his head, throwing away these superfluous thoughts, Edmond continued to practice Skeleton Resurrection on the remaining corpse.
After so many days of practice, he was already able to gather the soul that had dissipated within the corpse.
But now he was stuck at the most difficult step, which was using Necrotic Magic to transform the soul into the core of the undead—the Soul Fire.
However, under his teacher’s guidance, combined with his previous experience, Edmond now had some results.
It probably wouldn’t be long before this step could also be successfully completed.