Mage Apprentice Jack

Although Jack desperately wanted to burn it, he would never disobey Yang Mu's orders. During the three months at sea, he had already witnessed the terror and power of this black wizard captain.

What he had once thought was merely recruitment rhetoric—that Yang Mu would place him at the pinnacle of these waters—now seemed to be a statement of fact.

By the captain's assessment, he was now a Low-Level Apprentice. His mental power had reached 2.1, more than twenty times that of an ordinary person.

He even commanded thirty Walking Corpses and over twenty skeletons. Yes, the undead on the ghost ship did not belong to Yang Mu; they belonged to Jack.

Yang Mu simply had no use for such ordinary undead. If he wished, he could create hundreds or thousands of them at any time.

But Jack was different. As a Junior Apprentice who had only recently come into contact with the mysterious, vast Magic World, he displayed the proper obsession with power.

Having once been an ordinary pirate, he understood just how terrifying the combat strength of these skeletons and Walking Corpses—things the captain considered beneath notice—really was.

They possessed immense strength and bodies without pain or vital weaknesses. Unless the magical core in their brains was destroyed, they were practically immortal.

On his own, he was a pirate crew. Given enough time, if he found a large ship and raised hundreds or thousands of Walking Corpses and Skeleton Warriors, then even if he could not become a pirate king like the Seven Sea Kings, he could still become a great pirate ruling one region of the sea.

However, after witnessing all the miraculous methods of his captain, he had lost much of his interest in the once-unattainable position of pirate king. What interested him more was the greater, more powerful magic his captain spoke of.

The Skeleton Resurrection he had learned, as well as the Zombie Reanimation that came with his meditation method, were merely the most basic spells in the captain's eyes.

Then what about stronger ones? Like that floating skull that had just killed the sea monster—it was one of the captain's creations.

Jack was immensely grateful that he had not refused the captain's invitation back then.

"First Mate, you're getting stronger and stronger. I wonder when the captain will grant us power too."

"Yeah, First Mate. Those skeletons of yours looked creepy at first, but now I think they're damn cool."

"Just work hard. Maybe one day the captain will be in a good mood and grant us this kind of power too."

The other crewmen carrying valuable goods all voiced their envy of Jack, and he thoroughly enjoyed it.

"Hmph, you brats, do your work properly. The captain won't shortchange you. I still don't know what kind of dumb luck you had to get picked by me in the first place."

"When I first went to sea, I couldn't even loot ten Gold Shields in a year. But you lot? In just three months, every one of you has more than a hundred Gold Shields, right? Damn it, you ungrateful little bastards."

Growing angrier as he spoke, Jack kicked each passing brat once. The sailors-slash-pirates did not get angry. They simply took it with foolish grins on their faces.

Their pirate crew was not much like a pirate crew. There was still competition, of course; there were disputes over positions such as second mate and head cook.

But their captain and first mate were far too strong for them to resist, and the first mate disliked them fighting among themselves because he had no need to maintain his authority that way.

Thus, they were exceptionally vicious toward outsiders but rather simple and honest with their own people. Jack was extremely satisfied with these brats.

They fought fiercely and obeyed orders, and there was none of the usual bullshit aboard the ship. These were the most comfortable days he had ever spent as a pirate.

The captain did not care much about Gold Shields. As long as half the plundered money was handed over, the rest belonged to them. And the ships they raided were all extremely wealthy merchant vessels, so their earnings could rival those of only the greatest pirate crews.

There were few of them, too, meaning each person received an even larger share. This created an extremely bizarre sight: pirates, famous for betrayal, shamelessness, brutality, and infighting, were remarkably united aboard the Undead, even more so than some naval warships.

Speaking of naval warships, as their raids continued, the navies of various nations had already taken notice of them. Before long, they would probably appear on the wanted lists of several countries, and then the navy would come after them.

In the past, Jack would have worried about such matters. But now? Heh...

He picked up Abel's corpse and leaped back onto the Undead.

He came to the middle deck and placed the corpse on a dissection table.

"Captain, Abel's corpse."

"Good. I understand."

Yang Mu did not even raise his head as he spoke. He was mixing something amid a pile of bottles and jars, grinding a tree root with a human face into powder while tossing a potion bottle to Jack.

"This is a Mental Power Stabilization Potion I prepared. It can help settle your still-unsteady mental power as quickly as possible. After drinking it, remember to record how you feel so it can be improved."

"Yes, Captain."

Jack caught the potion and smoothly tucked it into his clothes. He was already used to this sort of thing. The captain would give him potions from time to time, either to strengthen his body or stabilize his mind.

At first, he had thought the captain was using him to test drugs. He could not resist, so he had endured it. Later, he discovered that it was indeed drug testing, but not the kind where the effects were unknown during development.

Rather, it was testing how to achieve the greatest effects with the cheapest materials.

As a great Mage of Moonlight Rank, grasping the properties of potions at this level was child's play. He merely needed to determine which extraordinary materials in this world were the most suitable and the least expensive.

He had been too optimistic about the Dark Forge Meditation. Even with the burning intervals he had set, the time was nowhere near enough to calm the abnormal fluctuations in mental power. It still needed improvement.

He already had a version 2.0, but Jack needed to settle his mental power before it could be adjusted. That was one reason he had not allowed Jack to burn Abel.

As for the other twenty reserve test subjects, if he gave them the current version, more than half would likely go mad. So they were not being considered for now.

Outside, after the last crewman returned carrying a crate of goods, the deck of the Undead creaked as wood twisted and groaned. A huge mouth opened beneath the deck, bit down on the merchant ship in a single bite, and began devouring it.

The crew of the Undead had long since grown accustomed to the sight. One by one, they dragged corpses toward the lower deck. More than a hundred bodies had already been piled there, and now more than twenty would be added.

Every one of those corpses was strong and large, selected from among many bodies. They were all Jack's reserve soldiers.

The Undead was limited in size, after all. Too many active undead took up space, so Jack would only go to the lower deck to summon new undead after the number of existing undead had decreased or the Undead had grown larger.