7 Skeleton Summoning Tokens

Su Ran closed his personal panel, and silence returned to the room.

The tools and materials left over from making scrolls lay on the table. But Su Ran's attention had shifted elsewhere.

With a thought, he brought the plain wooden treasure chest he had taken back from the Skeleton Graveyard onto the table again.

According to the guide Su Ran had purchased on the forum:

Common equipment: 62%.

[Rusty Iron Sword]: Attack +5%, with a minor damage bonus against the undead.

[Worn Leather Armor]: Physical defense +1–2.

[Bone Shard Bracers]: Defense +0.5, strength/agility +5%.

Fine (green) equipment: 8%.

[Quenched Bone Blade]: Attack +10%. Special effect: [Minor Evil-Banishing], +1 additional damage against undead creatures.

[Focusing Crystal]: Intelligence +10%, or a minor 5% increase to the effect strength of light/positive-energy spells.

Consumables (total probability: 29%)

[Lesser Healing Potion]: Slowly restores 15 health over 30 seconds.

[Lesser Purification Potion]: Removes or resists negative status effects inflicted by low-level undead, such as minor frostbite and slight fear.

[Bone Powder]: A low-level undead material. Can be used in certain low-level potions or rituals, or exchanged with specific NPCs, such as churches and alchemists, for a small reward.

Special category probability: 1%.

[Skeleton Summoning Token]: Consumes some of the holder's mental power to summon 1–2 Lv. 2 [Skeleton Soldiers] to assist in combat for 3 minutes. Usable once per day.

That was undoubtedly what Su Ran valued most.

Although Skeleton Soldiers had slightly lower attributes than ordinary Skeleton Warriors of the same level and were unintelligent, capable only of following simple attack, defend, and follow commands,

They were still decent meat shields that feared death the least, especially for someone like Su Ran, who intended to solo dungeons in the future.

Professionals who had obtained a [Skeleton Summoning Token] as a drop had said that controlling summons also continually consumed a tiny amount of the holder's mental power.

If mental power fell below a certain threshold, the summons might go out of control or dissipate.

The token itself also had durability. Every successful summon consumed one point, and an intact token usually had five to ten points. Once its durability reached zero, the token would shatter completely and become useless.

Su Ran sat at the table, his gaze resting on the wooden treasure chest.

He reached out and laid a hand on the rough clasp, then took another deep breath, calming his thoughts, which had been slightly stirred by leveling up.

"First opening."

"Click."

The lid flipped open.

A longsword lay quietly on the lining. Its blade was long and narrow, covered in mottled patches of dark red rust, and its edge did not look sharp. The guard was plain iron, the grip wrapped in cord, and the whole thing had a cheap, worn look.

Beside it lay a smooth silver coin.

[Rusty Iron Sword].

An ordinary whiteboard weapon with a small trait against undead—better than nothing. Plus a silver coin.

This haul was in line with the average for a wooden chest from the Skeleton Graveyard. It could even be called unremarkable—not a surprise, but at least the silver coin was genuine hard currency.

Su Ran's expression remained calm as he took out the iron sword and silver coin and placed them at the corner of the table. Then he looked at the wooden chest again.

Under his gaze, the lid silently closed on its own, and the clasp returned to its original position.

The reset was complete.

The second opening was the one that truly mattered.

Without pausing, he placed his fingers on the clasp again.

"Second opening."

"Click."

The lid sprang open.

This time, there was no weapon or coin inside.

There was only one thing.

A thin, irregular-edged fragment about the size of a palm lay quietly at the bottom of the chest. It was a dull grayish white, neither metal nor bone, and its material was hard to identify.

Fine cracks covered its surface, as though it would shatter at a touch. Etched on the front was an extremely simplified skull-shaped rune, its lines broken and seemingly ready to dissipate at any moment. It gave off a faint but distinct chill.

On the back was a broken circle of scratches whose meaning was unclear.

Su Ran's pupils contracted slightly, and he reached out to pick it up.

It was icy and very light in his hand. When his fingers touched the skull rune, he could feel a trace of energy fluctuation.

At the same time, a stream of information entered his consciousness:

[Skeleton Summoning Token]

Su Ran looked at the cracked grayish-white fragment in his hand, very satisfied.

It still had six durability points, which meant he could use it a full six more times. It could be considered a means of preserving his life.

A week slipped quietly by amid mechanical repetition and taut concentration.

A daily run of the Skeleton Graveyard on easy difficulty became a regular part of Su Ran and the Shield Guard Squad's routine.

Getting used to one another, fighting, dividing the spoils, and leaving. The process grew increasingly familiar, and their coordination became ever more seamless.

The tactic of pairing Light Spell scrolls with the shield guards' solid defense and the spearmen's precise thrusts was honed to perfection, making them far more efficient than ordinary pickup groups.

Although every fight still carried risks, the returns were steady.

Seven wooden treasure chests, each opened twice.

The spoils from the first openings accumulated steadily: rusty or slightly distinctive whiteboard weapons and armor, scattered silver and copper coins, and some undead materials.

Su Ran equipped, sold, or stored them all, steadily turning them into part of his strength and capital.

His truly personal, secret spoils, however, came from those seven second openings.

[Skeleton Summoning Tokens].

The first fragment, the second, the third... seven in total.

But from seven dungeon runs and seven treasure chests, there was normally no way to collect so many [Skeleton Summoning Tokens].

At the normal one percent drop rate he estimated, an ordinary party might not get even one in a month of farming.

Although the shield guards occasionally got small surprises of their own, they had never seen anything like them.

He had to get rid of some of them. He absolutely could not let them be exposed.

An ordinary man was innocent, but carrying a jade treasure made him guilty.

All the more so when this jade had come to him in such an abnormal way, making it easy for others to draw connections. In this world, exposing what made one special often meant danger.

On the swaying bus back to the city, Su Ran did not close his eyes to rest or look out the window as usual.

He opened his personal terminal, connected to the somewhat sluggish public network, and began browsing several trading and information platforms commonly used by awakened ones.

His fingertips swept across the screen of light as windows rapidly changed one after another.

His fingertips swept across the screen of light as windows rapidly changed one after another. He deliberately avoided searching directly for [Skeleton Summoning Tokens] or similar keywords; that would have been too conspicuous.

Instead, like an ordinary awakened one, he first browsed discussions of dungeon guides, fluctuations in equipment prices, and even videos about bizarre urban legends.

In the video comments, some complained that all they got was whiteboard gear, while others showed off the occasional green weapon. More people asked about specific strategies or party recruitment.

Su Ran skimmed through them quickly but found not a word related to the tokens.

That meant either their drop rate was so low that they fell outside the statistical sample, or... very few people obtained them and discussed them publicly at all.