Chapter 2: Order Incoming

"A solution of living mercury?"

Ambrose tapped his skull thoughtfully. He'd heard of that potion before. It was a failed product from the Alchemists' Guild, if memory served. It was a byproduct of their latest slime cultivation project.

The Alchemists' Council had been suffering from a lack of innovation in recent years, and the prideful alchemists were getting more and more restless. In their eyes, no wizard, warlock, nor even deity could compare with their sacred art of reagents and beakers.

They were obsessed with the dream that alchemy could create anything. A few centuries ago, some of them had even tried to create an actual god through alchemy. Unfortunately for them, the God of Alchemy already existed—and was very offended.

Such blasphemy was punished by a lesson that the prideful alchemists would never forget: from that day onward, no alchemist could receive divine inspiration through His power.

For two whole centuries, the great City of Alchemists, Alkhemia, produced no new potion recipes whatsoever. Things only changed when the head of the Alchemists' Council finally overcame the seal and designed a new potion from sheer human ingenuity alone, saving Alkhemia from total collapse.

That council leader was a legend. He had shattered a god's curse, revived the city, and even rewrote its laws: no more restrictions on race or nationality, affordable potions for all, and an open-door policy that brought in talent from every corner of the continent. It took decades, but Alkhemia rose from the ashes.

Ambrose had arrived in Alkhemia during that era of renaissance. It was one of the reasons he'd dared to undergo his lich reincarnation there in the first place.

But with their legendary leader aging and retreating from public life, the alchemists were back to their old self-destructive habits. This time, their obsession was creating new species: metal slimes, in particular.

Without their genius leader, though, every experiment failed spectacularly. The metal slimes they created were nothing but piles of dead ooze, and the result had ultimately been rebranded as "living mercury." As a solution, living mercury had the ability to dissolve and break down metals.

The potpourri of new-species projects all suffered the same fate. All the alchemists' research funds had gone down the drain. Alkhemia had burned through mountains of resources and was now bleeding money. As the economy slumped, the Court of the Silver Moon struck hard, jacking up the prices of potion ingredients and leaving the city's finances in ever more dire straits.

The result? Dozens of potion industries went bankrupt. Even Ambrose, technically an undead, wasn't spared. His investments tanked, and he was deep in a financial crisis.

"Damn those high elves!" Ambrose cursed aloud before replying in his Necromantic Codex.

[Megaman Tiga: You're using that stuff for experiments? I heard the potion was a dud. Those mercury slimes lost all their vitality.]

[Dullahan's Crown: I know, but living mercury inherits a slime's ability to dissolve anything. I've got... a situation on my hands. I need it to take care of some metal junk.]

[Megaman Tiga: A secret stash of money, huh?]

[Dullahan's Crown: What secret stash? By the Goddess of Undeath, you'd better not go about spreading rumors!]

[Black Rose: Definitely private funds. I still can't believe you got married. And to a bone dragon, no less!]

[Dullahan's Crown: You lot know nothing about the joys of marriage! Enough chatter. Tiga, can you get it or not? I'll even pay for the teleportation costs if I have to.]

[Megaman Tiga: I can try, but it won't be cheap. The Alchemists' Council is desperate to cut costs and raise profits. They've driven up the price of everything, even their failed products. They're probably trying to make up for their losses.]

[Dullahan's Crown: Twenty thousand gold a vial. I'll even pay half upfront.]

A picture slowly took shape across the yellowed page: a delicate vine coiled around a dragon's spine.

Known as dragonbone vine, it was a rare magical plant said to grow only on legendary bone dragons that had slumbered for centuries. It was a crucial reagent for many high-grade potions.

As the image sharpened, the vine shimmered and lifted off the page, materializing right before Ambrose's eye sockets. The Necromantic Codex had many strange powers. For one, small objects could be transmitted directly through it.

"Wow," Ambrose muttered. "He really sent it just like that." No wonder the man had married a bone dragon. The dowry alone would have been tempting. With the prices of magical ingredients soaring thanks to those greedy elves, this dragonbone vine alone was worth at least twelve thousand gold. The dullahan's secret stash had to be substantial.

"Damn those high elves! One day, I'll tear down their whole damned Court of the Silver Moon!"

Ambrose cursed under his breath, then turned back to his Codex. "I'll put in the order right now. You'll have your delivery within five days, tops."

Snapping his Codex shut, Ambrose immediately gathered his mana and conjured a magical raven.

For a legendary magician like him, such a trick was child's play.

The raven had only one purpose: to carry a letter bearing his shopping list to the City of Alchemists. A few days later, a merchant caravan would arrive at his castle, bringing him the bottle of living mercury he'd ordered.

Ah, the conveniences of a magician's life.

With the letter sent out. Ambrose pulled out a crate full of skeletal remains from his cabinet and prepared to resume his experiments.

"Hmph. Discriminate against necromancers, will you? I'll prove my thesis was perfectly valid."

With a sweep of his hand, the neatly assembled skeleton on the table disassembled itself, its bones floating apart until they hung suspended around him. Ambrose fell into deep thought.

Skeletons were clumsy simply because human bones were too complex—and death, unfortunately, dealt terrible damage to the soul.

Every necromancer went through an awkward period in which their creations moved around like clumsy marionettes. Inferior souls could barely control a skeleton's body; trying to get one to move around fluidly was like having a goblin pilot a mech suit. It would take years to teach it fine control.

Most wild undead spent years slowly training to improve their coordination. But to Ambrose, that was an utter waste of time. A soul was like a computer with limited processing power. If most of that power went into balancing a rickety skeleton body, how could it possibly move smoothly?

"Why must a skeleton walk like a human anyway? Who decided it had to have legs? Wouldn't four wheels be simpler?"

The bipedal structure was fundamentally flawed. It was something intelligent life had only evolved in order to free up hands for the use of tools. Even human children took a year to totter upright, and another few just to run without falling on their faces.

But skeletons weren't alive. Why should they care whether they had two legs or eight?

An inherently stable structure meant no processing power wasted to maintain balance. All that saved computation could be spent on more precise movements. And if those movements were standardized—broken down into simple, repetitive mechanical actions—the soul could execute them with ease.

Ambrose unfurled several scrolls. On them were his designs for new skeletal models, meticulously drawn schematics that were to have been published in

Legendary Spellcraft

. They would surely have sparked lively debate among necromancers everywhere.

Now, though, he would have to build them himself from scratch.

The household skeletons around his castle already handled chores just fine, but if he wanted to impress his peers, he needed something better. Something cheaper to make, yet stronger in battle.

"A traditional skeleton warrior can only fight with a sword..." Ambrose muttered to himself, separating the bones into smaller, modular pieces and slotting them together like clockwork parts. Then he took out a glass jar and fished out a small, translucent orb of light—a synthetic soul.

It wasn't just an artificial spirit. Ambrose's artificial souls could be programmed and modified. Their computing power was meager and far too weak to control entire skeletons, but if they only needed to operate a few joints, well, that was perfectly manageable. A few tweaks here and there, and...

Ambrose was in the middle of his work when a scream suddenly pierced the air outside the castle. He froze and dropped the bones in his hands. The soulfire that made up his eyes flared and narrowed like contracting human pupils.

One of his magic traps had just been triggered. Intruders were forcing their way into his castle.