White Thighs and a Green Tea Girl
A necromancer summoning a Type 055? What the hell?
Author: Woxue Guanxing
Synopsis:
As a necromancer, Chen Mo's whole style went completely off the rails after a bloodline sacrifice connected him to the motherland.
Others summoned zombies; his skeletons wielded automatic rifles and gave souls physical salvation.
Others summoned dark knights; his skeletons wielded heavy sniper rifles, delivering salvation in a single shot.
Others summoned flesh giants; his skeletons drove tanks, practicing the art of explosions.
When a legion of bone dragons came roaring in, blotting out the sky, Chen Mo calmly turned around and deftly entered a lengthy set of connection coordinates.
[Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall-KBC Void-Sloan Great Wall-Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex... (N astronomical units omitted here)... Inner Solar System-Blue Moon System-Blue Star-Republic of Eastern Xia]
A colossal object burst forth across the dimensional barrier.
"Please allow me to introduce, with great ceremony, the ultimate monster of violence and spokesperson for truth, serving the great industrial Cthulhu evil god of the East, equipped with 112 vertical launch cells, a 130 mm naval gun, an 1130 close-in weapon system, and Sea Red Flag short-range air defense missiles, undefeated across the seven seas: the Type 055 guided missile destroyer."
"Oh, right. Thanks to a levitation rune from a magic instructor, this one should now be called a Type 055 space guided missile destroyer."
"In front of this big bro, I'm not singling anyone out. I'm saying everyone here is trash!"
This book is also known as "What the hell is an industrialized undead scourge?", "We're all summoners, so why are you so bad?", "I tried so hard, so how are you still alive?", and "Life with Mom at my back is lonely as snow!"
Main story
Chapter 1: White Thighs and a Green Tea Girl
The spring breeze of the Starry Continent could not melt the snow in the Dark Forest;
The setting sun over Black Crow Castle could not dispel the gloom deep underground.
Chen Mo, a transmigrator, was hunched over in the cellar of the dark castle, diligently rubbing a pair of slender, snow-white thighs.
He rubbed them so gently and tenderly that it was as if he were caressing a lover who haunted his dreams.
After wiping one side, Chen Mo gave the pert pelvis a gentle pat. The owner of the thighs obligingly turned over, presenting him with her deathly pale shinbones.
All right, the owner of those slender, snow-white thighs was a skeleton.
But just tell me: were they snow-white or not? Slender or not?
Still, what kind of summoning mage spent every day cleaning skeletons?
What a fucking pain of another world!
A young and promising university student from modern Xia State, though the promise wasn't particularly apparent, Chen Mo had rewarded himself with a trip using the money he'd earned tutoring. At the beach, he came across a child who had wandered into the waves through parental neglect and been swept away.
Several people nearby were already shouting to save the child and racing into the water. On impulse, he rushed in too.
The problem was that they'd grown up by the sea and were strong swimmers, while he'd only practiced in a pool, and never swum more than twenty-five meters one way.
At the beach, with one wave following another, everyone saved the child, then came back to save him.
They didn't manage it!
When Chen Mo opened his eyes again, washed up on the beach, he saw a skeleton right in his face.
Its deathly pale teeth parted, as if it were forcing a smile at him.
Chen Mo fainted again.
The ones who had hauled him out were castle guards belonging to the Lord of Black Crow, a great necromancer.
Just like that, Chen Mo inexplicably became a servant in the castle.
This place was Black Crow Castle, on the edge of the Dark Forest in the Starry Continent. It was Archmage Black Crow's private domain, home to the great necromancer and his three subordinate mages, dozens of guards, and hundreds of servants.
Fortunately, thanks to his education in his previous life, Chen Mo was well educated. He soon stood out among the servants and became one of the archmage's Preparatory Apprentices.
The first time he discovered he could use magical materials to summon an undead creature from the altar, Chen Mo was too excited to sleep all night.
A mage! Summoning! Skeleton armies! Death knights!
The dream of so many boys and men!
Then reality gave him a brutal beating.
Mage Jiuwei, Archmage Black Crow's assistant and the one responsible for teaching spells, coldly reminded all the little ones, "You're just a bunch of trash."
The castle had twelve Formal Apprentices and sixty-six Preparatory Apprentices. Preparatory Apprentices were counted with the same measure word as skeletons: "creatures."
Several, sometimes more than a dozen, little things of this level died in the castle every year.
A Preparatory Apprentice's status in the castle was slightly higher than a skeleton spearman's, but lower than a dimwitted zombie axeman's.
Chen Mo settled down and began to cultivate diligently.
He got up early and collected a lump of food hard enough to break his skeleton's bones. That was a castle Preparatory Apprentice's ration for the day.
His skeleton had to slowly pick it into powder with its spearhead, and he forced it down with cold water from a pit.
In the morning, he cleaned the castle until he was covered in dust.
In the afternoon, he cleaned his summoned skeleton.
At night, he scrubbed the summons of his senior Preparatory Apprentices and the Formal Apprentices.
There were no days off. It was even more miserable than being a 996 workhorse in Xia State.
Worse still, there was no pay.
A Preparatory Apprentice and a summoned skeleton: a pair of born laborers.
Chen Mo spent most of his daily life cleaning undead creatures. This wasn't because Archmage Black Crow was a clean freak; the laws of this world were simply too realistic.
Why were most beginners' summons undead?
Because the greatest advantage of undead creatures from the Underworld was that they didn't need to eat, drink, or relieve themselves. There were no additional food expenses, and no need to worry about a summon's logistics when going out.
They were a poor mage's destined partner and an excellent stopgap for wealthy heirs.
But there were problems too. Low-level undead generally weren't very intelligent.
They had no idea how to take care of themselves, and skeletons were a prime example.
If a necromancer didn't tend to them promptly, hard objects picked up in battle, such as sand, pebbles, and bits of debris, could easily become lodged in joints unprotected by flesh, quickly wearing down the connections and causing damage.
An undead creature couldn't feel pain. That was both an advantage and a disadvantage: it didn't know what was wrong with itself.
Chen Mo had once seen a skeleton spearman's knee suddenly buckle during a charge, sending it tumbling through the air before its opponent easily dismantled it into seventeen or eighteen pieces.
Afterward, a mage examined it and said a pebble had gotten wedged between its meniscus and kneecap.
Honestly-out of nowhere, science had entered a fantasy world!
So Chen Mo could only report to work on time every day and diligently wash, scrub, and oil the skeletons belonging to himself and the Advanced Apprentices.
Between chores, he squeezed out a little time to train his meager spiritual power and mana.
If life went on like this, perhaps after another three, five, seven, or eight years, Chen Mo could eventually work his way up to becoming an official undead summoning mage. But reality didn't seem inclined to give him that chance.
In two days, it would be Archmage Black Crow's annual birthday celebration, and every apprentice had to present a gift to their esteemed mentor.
Five years as an apprentice, four years of service, and offerings for three festivals and two birthdays without fail. That was roughly how it worked.
As for the gifts themselves, apprentices with money could choose as they pleased. Those without money-sorry, but assignments had already been handed down.
Chen Mo's orders were to accompany a squad into the depths of the Dark Forest and kill a Dark Demon Tree.
The young master leading them, a senior apprentice, was very strong, so the Dark Demon Tree was doomed.
Chen Mo was doomed too.
The way the squad leader looked at him was no different from the way he would look at a dead man.
After all, Chen Mo had the soul of a modern man who had navigated the little society of school. He could read the malice in the fellow's eyes.
After observing carefully, Chen Mo saw that this was a tragedy caused by a girl.
The girl's name was Aili, a Preparatory Apprentice from a merchant family. She was quite pretty, especially her big eyes, which seemed to ripple like clear water when she looked at someone, making her look charming and delicate.
In a dark and gloomy place like Black Raven Castle, where men greatly outnumbered women, she was the brightest moonlight in the boys' hearts.
What was more, Aili knew how to play push and pull.
Some pretty girls had an innate talent for moving among men, making every fellow who admired them willingly give things to them.
It might be a chore, a handful of materials, or a standard silver coin.
Just getting to service the summons of the goddess in their hearts could leave those boys so excited they wouldn't wash their hands for days.
Chen Mo was fairly good-looking, and his bearing drew attention too. On top of that, he had distinguished himself among the servants in just a month and summoned his first skeleton spearman.
His skill might not have been top-notch, but his potential was plain to see.
Because of that, Aili always spoke a little more gently to Chen Mo.
Of the dozens of apprentices, only a few boys received such special treatment. Best of all, Aili could make each boy feel that the goddess treated him differently from everyone else, that he was the one and only.
A truly gifted green tea girl!
Chen Mo had the soul of a modern man, so naturally he wasn't as shy. At first, he occasionally teased her, making the girl's face flush red.
Having been in a relationship before, Chen Mo felt that Aili probably regarded him as a decent backup.
She longed to connect with people above her, but she knew full well that the chances of a great family's son marrying her were vanishingly small.
So while she acted shy and timid around the sons of wealthy families, she kept the possibility open with promising prospects like Chen Mo.
Perhaps she bore no great malice and merely wanted to live a little better in this environment.
Besides, they had ended up in the necromancer faction. How much better was any one of them than another?
But Aili's playing hard to get was intolerable to certain young masters of prominent families who regarded her as theirs alone.
In a practice match not long ago, two Preparatory Apprentices had both died, and this young master, a Formal Apprentice, had been given a hefty fine.
Four gold coins, three sentences of reprimand, two human lives, all settled in one stroke!
Chen Mo had been shocked. He had been too well protected in modern times and still hadn't fully adapted to this man-eating world.