The Manual Called the World
Creating two high-level undead right now wasn't a good choice.
The materials were expensive, for one thing, but the real problem was the time it would take.
Many humans had a misconception about the undead. They thought you could cast a skeleton-raising spell, pull a skeleton up from a corpse, and call it a real undead creature.
In reality, a skeleton soldier created by such a spell could last at most a day. It couldn't really be considered undead at all—just a temporary puppet.
It relied entirely on the caster to control its movements, and even its soul was incomplete.
Creating true undead that could last a long time and possessed a sense of self was already a lot of work. Creating high-level undead that retained most of their normal thought processes was even harder.
First, he had to check whether the two souls still existed.
Amber Xiu wasn't worried about Hastings. That robber who preyed on other robbers probably had little faith, so his soul would remain in his body for quite some time after death, suffering torment.
The half-elf Ranger was the problem. Most elves worshipped the Elf Pantheon, and those gods cared deeply about elven souls. When an elf died, their soul usually went straight to the Elf Divine Kingdom. Very few lingered behind.
Trying to hold on to an elf's soul would likely anger those vindictive elven gods, which hardly seemed worth the trouble.
But when Amber Xiu examined the bodies, he discovered that Hares's soul was still there, too.
"Not a worshipper of those stingy gods in the Elf Pantheon? Excellent. That saves me a lot of trouble."
Low incantations filled the gloomy laboratory, like ancient shadows murmuring in the abyss. The temperature plummeted, and frost spread across the room,