Catpurr 1: Becoming a Nekomancer

  Throughout time, Necromancers have always faced persecution. Scorned, hunted, and generally treated unpleasantly, despite being the best class ever.

  I mean, who knew that raising the dead and creating armies of zombies to do your bidding would upset the living? After all, there was an untold amount of free labor to be had by just animating a few bones.

  Murder victims could be raised to find their killers, Skeletons could work the fields, while necromancers could help ease the dead into peace without violently exorcizing them. Hell, any job a living being could do, the undead could do better, with endless stamina and less pay, even the IRS couldn't tax the dead! Why couldn't anyone see that?!

  Adam Glow did.

  That’s why he pursued the path of a Necromancer in the hope of becoming a lich like his teacher.

  After all, the class was all perks! Immortality, cool animated bones, unfathomable power, what possible downsides could there be to shedding his weak meat suit? Plus, necromancy could help everyone build a utopian society! They just couldn't see it, because they lacked vision! Lacked ingenuity! The grand leaps in human technological advancement that could be made if only humanity would shed their ignorant ways and embrace the bone!

  Sadly he was alone in his love of undeath, and whenever Adam tried to convince people, he was met with indifference, disgust, or anger. Usually, a combination of all three that would force him to flee with his only companion, Schroedinger.

  He was soft, sleek, and aloof, with silky white fur akin to bones and eyes that shone a nice blood red, much like the undead under Adam’s control. But unlike the walking corpses, Schroedinger was very much alive, and also a cat! The only living thing in the world Adam truly cared about.

  Schroedinger purred in his arms as Adam dodged the thousandth arrow being fired at him. Despite the jostling around and sounds of explosions going off around him, Schroedinger was quite calm.

  Opening his status window, Adam tried to contemplate options on how best to escape his dogged pursuers.

  He was on his last drop of mana, less than 0.5 percent to be exact, with the other ninety-nine of it being used to defend against the overwhelming barrage of the hundreds of spellcasters and bowmen who had led him into a trap.

  Though Adam knew better, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to snap up an Ancient Necromancer artifact, an item he was tipped off to by several paladins gossiping over a campfire, unaware that the person they were hunting was sitting in a nearby tree, observing them as they talked about "Heretical activity" and the "Eye of Eli.".

  Adam had licked his lips, listening intently to the men boast about the artifact being the key to Lichhood, the final piece to his puzzle and answer to all his problems.

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  Despite his skepticism, Adam had arrived to claim the Eye. Unfortunately the rabid Knights and pesky foot soldiers had rigged the temple to explode, causing it to collapse on top of him as he collected his prize. A prize which, much to his dismay, was actually the REAL artifact. However, before Adam could warp away from the explosion, a myriad of spells began raining down on him, forcing his auto barrier to activate.

  Luckily for Adam, he had various resistances to the cornucopia of attacks showered on him. Unfortunately for Adam, he underestimated just how many people had come out to kill him and how dedicated they were. Wizards, Archers, Pegasus Riders and their magic-resistant steeds, at one point Adam thought he spotted a row of trebuchets.

  It was only after creating hundreds of undead and spirits within the army’s ranks, was he actually presented an opportunity to escape. Using Mass Raise, to raise hundreds of low tier skeletons, and Summon Swap, to trade places, he was able to break their formation.

  Seizing the moment, Adam had tried to fly but something prevented him from doing so, forcing him to resort to brute force. Luckily Adam was good at two things, running and making more undead, he wasn't much of a fighter when it came down to it, but he was always good at dodging and having minions do his bidding.

  "Kill that filthy bone digger!" Goosebumps crawled along Adam's skin as he recognized the voice.

  “Ugh, not this fleshie again!” Adam huffed in annoyance, his notebook slashed open and scattering his notes as he confirmed it with a glance.

  It was Junith, a Paladin of the Holy Inquisition with whom Adam was well acquainted. She was unmistakable in her white and gold trim armor. Usually she held a flaming silver broadsword in her hand, but today she wielded an accursed scorching blade burning brighter than usual as she charged at him.

  Seems she's still furious about that mishap with the king. Adam grimaced.

  Ever since the complete and TOTALLY accidental death of a guy that Adam saw harassing a woman. The deranged lady and her entourage of holier-than-thou zealots had been baying for his blood.

  It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t recognize the King from hundreds of meters in the sky, and it was most DEFINITELY not his fault that the old man died from a heart attack. Granted, his small bolt of electricity meant to stop the harassment may have been the culprit, but from above it just looked like some old perv assaulting a woman!

  In his defense, he did try to resurrect the old man, but the Imperial guard and Zealots of the church were on him like flies on a corpse, forcing him to flee.

  Ever since then they were committed to “Exorcizing him”. He had tried apologizing on a number of occasions and even offered to attempt to resurrect their GodKing or whatever. But no matter how many times he said he was sorry the woman always charged at him while screaming something along the lines of “HERETIC!” or “UNCLEAN!” or "PURGE!" or "DIE SCUM!".

  Adam hugged Schroedinger close to his chest as Junith swiped at him with her burning blade. His passive skill Dodge Danger V5 activated, boosted by Evasion it caused his knees to buckle, allowing him to effortlessly slide beneath the heavy weapon, dodging the attack.

  She hadn’t entirely missed though. Whatever the blade was made of it gave off mad alarms in Adam’s head as his health bar dropped by a whole five hundred points. And it hadn’t even touched him! Two more misses like that and he was dead, he didn’t want to think of what would happen if he had tried to deflect or guard the attack.

  Seeing the expression on Adam’s face the woman smirked, signaling her soldiers to wait.

  “You feel that Heretic!? This is the Divine Holy blade of Akalym, forged in the divine fires of our most divine altar, its divinity so divi—OW!” Whatever she was going to say, Adam wasn’t going to let her finish.

  With deft hands he quickly threw pocket-sand laced with his mana directly at the jabbering woman and took off, ignoring the cries of cowardice and swear words from the nearby soldiers.

  “I’LL GUT YOU LIKE A FISH, HERETIC!” The angry woman screamed out.

  Speaking of fish, that does sound good right about now.

  All Adam wanted to do was flee with his prize and eat some fish with Schroedinger, but looking at his depleted mana bar, and cavalry on the horizon it didn’t look like he would ever eat fish with his feline friend again. Whatever the array they had used on him was, it was still draining his mana faster than he could recover it and expanding, covering more ground than he could run, and on top of that it seemed to nullify all his magical enchants on his armor, making his storage units, and special effects useless.

  Maybe it’s time to see what you can do. Adam thought to himself as he stared at the amulet in his free hand.

  Using Identify he tried to read the Eye of Eli, but all it showed was:

  —---------------------------------------------------

  Eye of Eli - Legendary Grade Artifact

  ????

  Activation Cost: 100 Mana

  —----------------------------------------------------

  What now?

  Which was odd considering his Identify was at max rank.

  Using the skill had cost him precious mana with now less than one-half of a percent of his total mana left, he looked down at the amulet in his hand and decided to take his chances with it.

  It was usually not a good idea to activate an unknown artifact, especially when one didn’t know what it did. But at this point, what did he have to lose? In a matter of seconds, he’d be out of mana and dead anyway.

  The woman had recovered and was charging at him with bloodshot eyes while armored horsemen rode in from the sunset and Pegasus Archers strafed his position with arrows, making Adam grimace.

  His only regret was that Stroedinger would probably die here with him.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Adam mused as he used the last remaining amount of mana he had to activate the artifact.

  Suddenly the world around him froze, with arrows stopping mid-flight, and the flaming sword only inches away from his neck. The image of the crazed white armored woman frozen in place would have been hilarious if not for the fact that she was but a mere second from decapitating him.

  An alert abruptly appeared in front of his face, interrupting him from his introspection. A second later, a voice boomed in his ear followed by several other voices that echoed what the main one said.

  With no other choice, Adam willed it to say yes, but what came next surprised him.

  Is this thing serious?! Adam thought to himself, as his jaw refused to move. He could never sacrifice his only friend. It was preposterous!

  There has to be a different option! Cancel Cancel! Adam willed, but nothing happened. With each second passing of him screaming internally, he began to see the things around him begin to move, slowly speeding up, with Junith's blade quivering.

  DAMN IT!

  “DAMN IT!” Adam yelled out loud as time continued and he pressed down on the screen. Just as the flames pressing against his skin began to burn him. In the next moment, a massive burst of energy erupted around Adam, scattering the attackers and leveling the entire landscape, kicking up dust and debri as humans flew screaming.

  “ELI ACCEPTS YOUR GRACIOUS OFFERING YOUNG NECROMANCER!” A voice akin to god from above bellowed out, shortly before Adam began feeling a sense of massive fatigue weighing down on him, almost as if his very soul were being sucked out.

  [YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN!]

  Strangely he began to itch all over with a burning sensation creeping along his back as his eyes started to hurt. Checking his status menu his jaw hit the floor, in fact, he was so stunned he unconsciously dropped Stroedinger who merely scampered away.

  TITLE: IDIOT NOVICE OF ELI (?????)

  NAME- Adam F. Glow

  LEVEL- 1

  MAIN CLASS- Nekomancer

  HP: 10/100

  MANA: 0/75

  STR: 7

  CON: 10

  DEX: 12

  INT: 15

  WIS: 9

  CHAR:10

  Buffs:Loved by Undead(Unique), Minor Blessing of Eli(Unique), Eyes of a Predator V1, Corrupted Blessing of Nyx(Unique)

  Debuffs: Ha! You Sacrificed Your stats for a Cat?!V1(CURSE) Catsification V1 (Curse)

  Skills: Animate Bone V1, Irritating Touch V1, Cat Claws V1, Identify V1. Summon Skeleton V1.

  “You’ve gotta…” Was all Adam could say in confusion before a blue portal suddenly ripped open, dragging him.

  Snapping himself out of his confusion, Adam dove and attempted to grab Stroedinger, but it was too late, the spell was already in effect, yanking on his ankles and pulling him through.

  The cat looked up, attempting to run towards its master, but was caught by the soot-covered Junith who now held a bewildered look on her face.

  “SCHROEDINGER!” Adam screamed in panic as he watched the feline be scooped up by the lady in white armor. Adam tried to rack his brain to figure out how to save his companion, but there was nothing he could do. Nothing at all as he was thrown helplessly into the unknown abyss.