Chapter 202 - "300 dark mana points per slave"

Dark mana was a unique concept that Timothy had never heard of before. Sure he was aware that there were different types of mana, such as psidium, calidum, and flesh mana, each of which had special characteristics and demanded full dominance of one’s mana pool, but he never heard of dark mana! Necromantic powers being dark, apparently wasn't just a figurative speech!

However, formalities aside, Tim cared more about if these new settings would help him complete his plans quicker, cheaply that is! He put himself in danger just to buy the Master's Will ability, and if this thing depleted his mana pool after creating a couple of slaves, then his plan was doomed to fail, doomed from the start!

“Let’s see here…” He muttered, and brought his two new, little pets with him. “I'm going to have to destroy you, boys, but just for a minute! I'll bring you back shortly!”

Timothy didn’t know if he could salvage their brains throughout the process of his new experiments, but he certainly wished to try! He got into action.

Using the Bone Multiplier ability, he numbed the pain sensors of his pets, and then he slowly removed their brains out of their heads! Since this step was backed up by his level six mana quality, he managed to complete this step without severely damaging their brains.

“So far so good,” He spoke, lightly, as to not break his own concentration.

[-7 dark mana points]

[-7 dark mana points]

[-7 dark mana points]

The system listed these notifications at the corner of his left eye after every second, and he was pleased to see this. Losing just seven points of mana a second was something that he hadn't seen in a long while, so it would appear that the system reduced the mana consumption rate to five-percent as well, so it was ninety-five percent cheaper to use his ‘dark’ abilities now, meaning, it wouldn't be too expensive even if he cranked the Bone Multiplier ability to the max! He was excited!

“Hehe,” He grinned, and continued working.

The next step of the process was to put the brain of his experiments aside, and work on their bodies. These experiments had their original skeletons, so he de-fleshed their bodies, and started working on their bones!

Timothy just bent their original bones to create a couple of goblin femurs, and then he started adding artificial bones, connecting them to the femurs. The Bone Multiplier ability was really handy with the latter matter!

[-20 dark mana points]

[-20 dark mana points]

[-20 dark mana points]

Building a skeleton was a bit more expensive, but he was far away from maxing out this ability, because goblin skeletons were easier to build, far cheaper than that of a human's. It didn't take long to create a ribcage, a pair of leg bones, and a pair of skulls too! He just kept extending the skeleton, until he got two whole ones, each of them being three feet tall!

The great thing about this, was that these skeletons were considered ‘reanimated’ skeletons, in a way! The fish skeletons that he turned into goblin femurs, were technically reanimated bones, regardless of how much he manipulated their form, so at the end, Timothy wouldn't need to pour endless amounts of mana in order to keep his slaves moving, as their entire bodies would technically be considered reanimated. He'd just have to give a verbal command, and they'd follow it, without being fed even a dot of mana for weeks at a time!

The latter was what he achieved earlier when he reanimated, and reconstructed those fish. Turning them into goblins was just a more advanced version of his prior achievement!

Anyway, as he continued using the Bone Multiplier ability, Timothy then coated the skeletons with flesh, organs, and a nervous system, and it was fair to say that this part was more expensive! It was expensive, but he was hardly going bankrupt here.

[-50 dark mana points]

[-50 dark mana points]

[-50 dark mana points]

Spending such an amount of mana points per second was huge, for sure, but he was reanimating two goblins, not one, so the expenses were split between them. He even rushed a bit, as to not spend too much time coating them with ripe, goblin flesh, and this was also why this part of the process was expensive.

Once he was done with nearly every detail of their bodies, he then started working on the brains of those fish that he had set aside. In order to maintain their short memories, and instinct, he had preserved their brains, and was ready to snap them into consciousness now!

Timothy expanded the tiny fish brains, and turned them into goblin ones. This process just cost a few mana points a second, so he decided to give them a decent IQ as well, rather than making them dead-brain stupid. He was creating slaves, but if he created dumb slaves who'd get massacred in the easiest battle, then he'd be wasting a lot of dark mana points for nothing!

With little work, he set their IQ at one-hundred-and-ten points, which was a lot for any goblin, it was the last stepping stone to becoming a goblin genius, even, so this was good, but he didn’t plan to make his future slaves this smart. He was just sentimental about these couple of guys, he treated their artificial, fish brains very gently!

Anyway, after he screwed their brains on, ninety-percent of his plan was complete! He could stop spending points on the Bone Multiplier ability now, because these guys were alive now, their hearts started beating as soon as he reanimated blood in their blood streams, but for now he kept them asleep.

These slaves were a perfect copy of aqus goblins, but he wasn’t done with them yet, he still had to give them magical powers. This was where the Master's Will ability came in, he paid forty-five thousand system points for it, and amongst other things, it gave him the ability to give magical powers to his slaves! He was eager to give powers to them, but for a moment, he stopped, and started calculating how many points each slave of his took when he reconstructed them.

[You just spent a total of 500 dark mana points,] The system beeped, sparing him the headache.

“Right… so 250 points a slave, eh? That's not so bad. At that rate, I can make almost ten, powerless slaves a day!” He added, and he was spot on with the math for once!

Anyway, after the light math, he then waved his tail around like a magic wand, and a black mist poured out of his barb, as he finally summoned the Master's Will ability! He looked like a deadly, flat, rattlesnake for a moment, but he wasn’t trying to attack anyone here.

The goblins instinctively breathed the fumes in, and within a flash, they were granted the ability to shoot fireballs! Sure their fireballs weren’t nearly as strong as to what Timothy could summon, they were a realm below him in terms of mana quality, but that was good nonetheless! A thousand of these bad boys would put any monster into shame!

[-100 dark mana points,] The system beeped.

“Nice! So it costs 300 points to make a fire-wielding goblin slave? Hehe! See, I was really savvy, system! My experiment is a strong, baffling success!” He celebrated, joy was overwhelming him.

The aqus goblin slaves then woke up, by his orders, and the first thing they saw was their large, stingray master! They woke up with a set of fresh organs, a full mana pool, magical powers to call their own, and a high IQ to suit them - They were alive, so to speak, and fully conscious!

“Oh, we no longer fish…” One of the goblins spoke, as he fought the brain fog.