Chapter 464: 464 Evolving More Undead

Chapter 464: Chapter 464 Evolving More Undead

[Item Acquired: Skill Mastery Potion]

Description: Drinking this potion while focusing on a skill will increase its mastery.

✦ If the selected skill is in Basic Mastery: Instantly promotes it to Intermediate.

✦ If the selected skill is in Intermediate Mastery: Promotes to Advanced.

✦ If the selected skill is in Advanced Mastery: Increases proficiency by 30–50%.

✦Effectiveness determined by user comprehension.

Michael’s eyes narrowed slightly as he read it again.

“…Interesting,” he muttered.

It also confirmed one of his assumptions.

Getting a skill to Perfect Mastery would not be easy. Even with this potion, two were at least required just to have a chance to break that final barrier.

Still.

This was a treasure.

More valuable than most Rare items.

Michael turned the potion between his fingers, watching the light play off the liquid inside.

There was no grade. No quality tier.

Yet the description was enough to tell him its worth.

It scaled with him.

That made it even more potent in the right hands.

The more he understood a skill, the better this potion would serve him.

His fingers twitched.

And he suddenly grinned.

“So if I drink one of these while thinking about…” His eyes flicked toward his panel. “Let’s say—Undead Revival.”

That skill was already his core class technique, the backbone of everything he did.

Right now, it was in Advanced Mastery thanks advancing to rank 2.

If he was desperate enough, he might hit Perfect.

Michael’s grip tightened slightly around the vial.

Perfect Mastery.

He’d never seen it before.

He quickly pulled out his panel and checked.

[Undead Revival] – Advanced Mastery (22%)

With a smirk, he put the vial away.

“Not yet.”

There were still five more. He wanted to test them, yes—but carefully. No wasting them.

Michael reached for the second orb and watched it morph into another potion.

Another soft chime.

Five potions. One use per skill. And if needed, more than one to reach the peak.

Michael placed the five shimmering vials into his storage space, each one carefully tucked away. As they vanished into the void, he exhaled slowly.

“Alright,” he muttered. “Next order of business.”

Breaking his advancement quest’s rating had brought some unexpected results—both blessings and burdens—but Michael couldn’t deny how much stronger he’d become. He hadn’t even digested all his gains yet. His stats were up. His contract slots had grown. His undead had evolved.

And there was still more to come.

But that could wait.

Right now, there was something else on his mind.

His undead.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t to inspect the changes in the ones that had just evolved. He had already sensed their improvements.

But in truth, Michael wasn’t done evolving his undead.

Back when he was still Rank 1, the strongest undead he could safely control were those at Rank 2. Any higher and the risk of losing control grew exponentially.

But now?

Now he was Rank 2.

And the leash had been extended.

He could handle more.

Initially, he had planned to evolve only Lucky—his oldest and most trusted undead—and call it a day. He figured having one Rank 3 undead would be enough of a boost after advancing.

But reality had quickly crushed that expectation.

The moment he felt his new power settle inside him, Michael knew.

He could beat his strongest undead.

Easily.

His entire foundation had changed.

And as a Necromancer, it wasn’t a good thing to be stronger than your summons.

Restricting his own strength for no good reason made no sense.

If he stuck to evolving only Lucky and left the rest at their current levels just because of arbitrary thresholds, then what was the point?

Why even call himself a Necromancer?

Michael snorted under his breath, amused at the thought.

“If I keep waiting for them to hit max level before evolving them,” he muttered, “I might as well change my class to ‘Professional Self-Nerfer.'”

He wasn’t a game character playing fair.

He was a summoner.

And power was the only rule.

In any case he had enough evolution points to achieve this.

Michael’s gaze turned sharp. “Time to evolve more.”

Thanks to the recent mass evolution, Michael now had more than one Extraordinary-rank undead.

Though none had surpassed the One-Star level yet.

There was Lucky, Gale, Prince, the three Titans—two of which were mutated—and one standard.

The two mutated Titans were, of course, Beginning and Lily. The normal one was the first orc Michael had ever evolved into a Goliath.

Before evolving the two mutated Titans—the next stage after Goliath—Michael had chosen not to separate their armor from them. Instead, he included their existing gear as part of the Extraordinary materials consumed during their evolution.

Only the other orcs and the Orc Shaman had been outfitted with standard clothing, deliberately chosen to avoid triggering mutation traits. As a result, the goliaths, like the standard Titan, wasn’t mutated and could be considered… pure-blooded, if such a term applied to undead.

As for his other key undead—Fade, Ghost, Blue, and Purple—they were now all Three-Star Rare-rank undead at Level 25. Michael figured that if he had enough Evolution Points left after evolving his top-tier units, he’d raise these four—and a few others—to One-Star Extraordinary rank before beginning another round of accumulation.

It was part of his plan to ensure his army progressed with him. He didn’t want to reach new heights while being the only true powerhouse among his undead.

Evolving a Three-Star Rare-rank undead to One-Star Extraordinary required 125 Evolution Points. Following the five-times-per-evolution rule, pushing a One-Star Extraordinary to Three-Star would cost 625 points.

For five undead, that would total 3,125 Evolution Points.

Clearly, as his undead grew stronger, the cost of strengthening them increased just as sharply. Michael could already envision a future where evolving even a single undead might take months of steady accumulation.

Of course, if he chose to abandon caution and stuffed his contract slots with random fodder just to earn more points, he could shorten that time. But doing so would only lead to a messy, unfocused legion.

Still—3,125 Evolution Points.

Michael could afford that.

For now.

As for the other titan.

It could wait for now.