Chapter 209 Fresh Eyes

Curious about what it would do, Jay took out all the weapons he had with him and made a neat display of them on the ground.

Heavy looked at the weapons before it, its eyes landing on each one and hovering for a moment before it turned to the next.

The weapons it had to choose from were the three bone spears, an ossein sword with a longer grip, and two bone daggers – one of which was Dark’s.

Both Dark and Handy couldn’t take their weapons with them as they were still using the lizard heads to cut away the dangerous red fruits, though Dark could still carry one of its dual daggers with it.

[Your skeleton has been slain]

“Ah shit, Sweeper died again?” Jay’s brows creased in frustration. The untimely death distracted him from Heavy.

About two hours passed since the last time Sweeper died – whatever it was, it was getting closer as each time Sweeper died a little more quickly.

While keeping his eyes on what Heavy was doing, he leisurely held one hand over the bone pile and began to summon Sweeper again. He barely needed to think when summoning anymore.

While the dark, sickly green mana left Jay’s hand and mingled with the bones, Heavy suddenly looked up and stared in amazement while another skeleton was assembled before it.

Leaving the weapons, it quickly hopped over to the bone pile to watch more closely.

“Oh, you’re interested?” Jay smiled slyly, a sense of pride in his voice.

Heavy only glanced at him before turning back to the floating bones, which assembled into Sweeper before them.

Sweeper followed Jays next command and went to get another spear.

Heavy followed Sweeper over to the weapons, mimicking its behaviour. Sweeper grabbed a spear, but this was when Heavy hesitated.

Sweeper was about to sprint off, but Jay stopped before it left.

Jay was sick of it dying, so he decided to send backup.

Another skeleton came back from the sand, grabbed a spear and then stood next to Sweeper as well.

“Go.” Jay said, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Lamp and Sweeper rushed away to deal with whatever was following them, and Jay was convinced that two of them could do the job.

Heavy curiously watched them leave, but was not curious enough to follow. Instead, it turned to the pile of bones and held its boney hand out over it, copying Jay. Unfortunately for Heavy, a level one skeleton had no mana, so nothing happened.

Jay was please though that the skeleton was mimicking him instead of the other skeletons.

“You can try to summon later, just focus on picking your weapon for now,” Jay chuckled, pointing at the other bone weapons.

“Hmm… I wonder if it will be able to summon someday…” he thought as he watched it.

Heavy went back to looking at the weapons, and it finally selected the dagger – the same one Jay had given it originally.

The lusterless dagger was suited to its body size. For now anyway.

It picked it up and looked closely at the blade, tracing its boney finger along it before swinging it a few times and following it up with a few stabs.

After a while, it began to add footwork into its thrusts, stepping forwards with extra speed and striking with extra power.

“Good, keep practicing.” Jay praised it, watching in awe.

The skeletons first attacks were slow and awkward-looking, but quickly improved.

The skeletons first instinct when picking up a weapon was to start swinging it and now Jay was feeling a little inspired, so he decided to craft it a small shield for it too.

He had crafted a shield for it previously, but he felt like it deserved something special, which basically meant something he would put effort into.

Jay formed another shield-like shape: a triangle with round sides and a flat rectangular top. A classic heater shield shape.

Its form was slender and stretched, it came up to the skeletons shoulder, while the point at the bottom ended at its knees.

Jay was about to finish the process, but he made some finishing touches specifically for Heavy – he gave it a thickened trim around the outside of the shield as well ass bulking up its thickness to suit the rest of Heavy’s armour.

While it was a weighty shield, and was too heavy, it would be suited to the skeletons size once it levelled up, so it would eventually be able to wield it effectively – and giving it a shield now while it was low level and with a young mind would be the best thing he could do for its foundation. Or perhaps the worst.

After all, Jay was no trainer, he simply thought that the more time it had, the better it would become. Since he had never been trained with a sword, he didn’t know that foundational mistakes would be harder to fix later on.

Jay analyzed the shield before handing it to the young undead.

<[Heavy Necrotic Knight Shield – Level 1]> (Small)

[Shield HP – 25]

[Armour – 15]

[Sletlian Counter – Heavy block, stagger enemy, then respond with a devastating strike. 5% chance]

[Block – Negate 100% damage from an attack. 15% chance. Otherwise take 80% reduced damage.]

[Lifespan – Requires essence to maintain it’s form]

[Current lifespan: 20 hours]

“Sletlian counter? Interesting… it must come from being a heavy shield” he nodded, “It’s no deathwalker’s sentry but still pretty good.”

Jay strolled over and held the shield out for Heavy, who had kept practicing with its weapon since Jay ordered it to.

“Here.” Jay held it out rauther than tossing it onto the ground like he usually did.

The skeleton tenderly grabbed it, seeming to have a brighter glow in its eyes as it gazed at its new shield.

Jay simply smiled, glad that his craftsmanship was now being treasured.

Heavy went back to practicing and swiped the shield a few times.

“Not like that” Jay smiled, shaking his head.

Jay grabbed a stick, “block the damage using the shield.” he said before lightly tapping the stick against the skeleton.

He tapped it in the head a few times while the skeleton stood there confused. Next, it tried to dodge the stick, then slash at the stick with its dagger, but still hadn’t used its shield.

Jay finally tapped the shield with the stick, and it was like the skeleton realized its purpose.

Before Jay could tap its head again, the skeleton ducked and raised the shield, successfully blocking it.

“Good!” Jay immediately said with a grin.

“…finally,” he thought.

Heavy did seem quite stupid, but its mind didn’t even exist an hour ago. All things considered, it was actually a fast learner with some sort of residual instinct for combat.

Now that it understood, Jay practiced with it a few more times before leaving it on its own – a sly smile appearing on his face as he decided that Heavy needed a sparring partner.

And the quickest way to get a sparring partner? To craft another mind for one of his skeletons of course.

Since the skeletons with a mind could be trusted, now that he knew they would follow orders too. It was time to give a mind to a higher level skeleton…

“Hmm… who to pick…” he gazed across his skeletons.