Chapter 34: Bones

"Skelly, use this to replace your backbones," Char gave the troll's backbone to the skeleton.

He had a hard time bringing it back because of its size. Trolls were at least three meters tall, their backbones were quite big.

The backbones alone were as tall as the skeleton when he lined them up. It was then that doubt came to his mind.

"Wait, can it walk with backbones that big? Would not that make its limbs unproportional to its body size? Rather than getting stronger, it might get weaker if that happens," he thought.

But the skeleton was actually fine. It took one bone at a time and replaced its backbone with it; the bone morphed a bit to fit the skeleton.

After it replaced all of its backbones with the bones he bought, it became a tall skeleton rather than an unproportional skeleton. It was two-meter tall, just a bit shorter than a giant skeleton.

"If I replace all of its bone with Troll's bone, then it might become a giant skeleton after its first evolution," he thought.

Replacing the skeleton bone with bigger bones was known to unlock giant skeletons, but few people went toward the giant skeleton path because its power was weaker than a skeleton warrior and skeleton mage path.

"I should not give it any more troll bones if I don't want to end up with a dead-end," he thought as the giant skeleton path was also known as a dead end. They could not evolve anymore.

"Skelly try to regenerate a bone, see how fast you can regenerate it," he instructed, but the skeleton only looked at him.

"Right, it's in perfect condition," he thought as he pulled out his new sword and struck at the skeleton.

The black sword was covered in mana as he activated the physical boost magic. He used his vertical strike and destroyed the skeleton's right arm with it.

It still looked at him blankly, but he could feel annoyance from it for a second. After a few seconds of silence, it finally activated its regeneration magic.

Bones grew from its shoulder, and it was actually faster than before. It took only a minute for it to form a new arm out of nothing.

"its regeneration grew faster, but that's not all, I suppose," he thought as he moved back a dozen meters.

He commanded it to use mana absorption magic, mana started to gather like a vortex as it absorbed the mana at maximum speed.

It took a minute before it exploded into a way bigger explosion than before, "Its levels increased I think, that's why it took a bit before the bones got saturated with mana." He analyzed.

But not only through analyzing it, he checked his soul container to find the skeleton actually reached level 10 by absorbing the higher tiered bones.

"The bone itself is higher level and I can fill it with mana using the mana absorption magic. I only need to pass the bottleneck so the skeleton can evolve," he thought.

Replacing bones with higher-level bones was known to be a fast way to increase a skeleton's level, but it's not all mighty.

It only allowed the skeleton to level up to half of the bone's original level, so if a skeleton wanted to reach level 50 through this shortcut, then it would need a level 100 bones which would be a waste to be given to a skeleton.

This meant only on the lower level this trick can be effective. That was also the reason a skeleton had a hard time reaching a higher level.

"I should not be too hasty in evolving my skeleton, I need to find a way so it gets an evolution with better potential," he thought as he decided to delay his promotion a bit.

Char tried to summon the skeleton once more, but he could not summon it just yet. Getting stronger came with its price. He would need to wait longer before he could summon it again.

"If I can use mana absorption magic, then I should be able to re-summon it without waiting, but it's too risky to use the magic myself, I don't want to end up exploding like fireworks," he thought.

He waited a few minutes and re-summoned the skeleton. Its taller body looked way more intimidating than its actual strength.

"Here try this." He threw the bone sword at the skeleton, it caught it easily with one hand, it tried to make the sword as part of its body but smoke started to rise from the sword and its body.

Both were burning each other. The holy attribute of the sword clashed with the skeleton's unholy element.

It activated its regeneration magic to restore itself but the sword was not regenerating; it got corroded slowly.

"If this fails then I will lose the sword," he lamented.

After half an hour of torturous wait, the smoke ceased from coming; the sword was only a fraction of its former glory and looked like it could crumble at any time.

But mana started to fill it before the bone sword mended back to its former glory. It looked even better than when Char bought it.

The skeleton swung it a few times before it stopped, the bone sword had become a part of it.

"With this, my skeleton becomes a pseudo knight tier creature even before it went through its first evolution!" he mused.

One of the differences between a knight-tier creature and a common tier creature was when knight-tier creatures get summoned they come with their own weapon or armor.

"The sword is technically part of its body, so it is just similar to a knight tier and not actually one. Its strength is also not comparable to the higher tier creatures," he thought.

Even so, Char was pleased by it. The sword being part of the skeleton means it will grow stronger along with it, and he would not need to buy a new one even if it got broken.

"One mana crystal and I would never need to buy another sword for it!" he grinned as he thought he had made the best purchase in his life.