CHAPTER 190: EVOLUTION

"But that would mean it would be less effective than if I learned from it myself...There’s no telling what will happen if I let it diffuse into me. I might lose this chance to learn more from the bone pillars."

There was this moment of struggle that filled me as I thought of this, but there was nothing that I could do in the end.

It wasn’t as if I could read what was written on the bone pillars, so I wasn’t able to gain knowledge like that.

After this moment of struggle, I took a deep breath before reaching my hand out towards the bone pillar in front of me.

The moment that my hand made contact with the bone pillar, I could feel the energy coming from it.

But it wasn’t as if I was the only one that could feel it.

This dark energy seemed to surge out of the bone pillar the moment that my hand made contact and entered me. As it entered me, I could feel the influence that it had on me as it seemed to be changing me from the inside out.

It was almost as if it was being warped into something else.

But that wasn’t normal since I was a lich in the first place.

Could liches be manipulated by dark energy like this?

That didn’t seem to matter as the dark energy surged into me and the sounds of bone cracking rang out.

At this point, there really wasn’t anything that I could do to resist this. The only thing that I could do now was just let the dark energy do what it was doing to me and see how it would change me.

After all, I could tell that this dark energy wasn’t actually trying to hurt me.

It was as if the dark energy was trying to become a part of me, rather than trying to invade my body.

After a while, that sensation finally disappeared.

When I looked down, I could see that my cloak had ripped while the dark energy had surged into me.

That was because my body had actually expanded after being strengthened by the dark energy. My bones had become bigger and thicker compared to before, which made me rip the cloak that I had been wearing.

But at the same time, I could sense the power that I now possessed.

"Congratulations to the host for evolving into an elder lich."

Even the system confirmed that I had evolved from a normal lich into an elder lich.

A smile appeared on my face after seeing this message as I could sense the power that filled me now.

I was clearly several more times powerful compared to before.

The power that I wielded now was more than ten times that amount of energy that I had possessed previously.

With this power, it would make my revenge against the Undead Society even easier.

Though this wasn’t the only thing that I was happy to see.

There was another message that appeared after that one message from the system congratulating me.

It was a message stating that I had received a reward from the system for evolving into an elder lich.

"The host has received two more avatar slots for evolving into an elder lich."

Two more avatars meant two more sets of shared stats.

At the same time, it meant two more identities for us to use in this world.

It seemed like I had gained quite a bit from coming to this village.

But once the joy from these gains wore off, I realized that there was a problem here.

I slowly turned back to look at the villagers that were behind me. They were all standing there with shocked looks on their faces.

There was no doubt that they had been completely shocked by the fact that I was a lich. However, there wasn’t anything that they could do since they had already formed that Soul Bind Contract with me.

Now I had to think about how to calm them down and make them accept the fact that I was a lich.

But it turned out that I had underestimated these villagers.

"You’re a lich?" Tucker couldn’t help slowly asking as he slowly came back to his senses.

I just gave a simple nod in response before preparing to give them the explanation that I had thought of.

Only it turned out that there was no need for me to do that.

As soon as I confirmed that I was a lich, their eyes immediately lit up and they looked at me with this fervor in their eyes that scared me a bit.

I had already known that they had this thirst for necromancy knowledge, but I never thought that it would be this great...

The way that they looked at me was almost as if they were looking at some kind of prey...

No, it was better to say that they were looking at me as if they were interested in my body.

It certainly wasn’t how I wanted these grown men to look at me...

With a cough, I said, "I may be a lich, but that doesn’t mean that I’m as cold as those other liches. As long as you’re willing to accept it, I’ll remain here as your chief."

"Of course you’re our chief!"

"Right? How could we give up the chance to have a lich as our chief?"

"Please share the story of how you became a lich with us! Or even better, can you tell us how we can turn ourselves into liches?"

When the last person said this, they all looked at me with very strange looks that made me uncomfortable.

It seemed that I had really underestimated how devoted they were to necromancy...

They didn’t even hesitate to ask how to give up on life and turn themselves into liches.

This kind of dedication really was terrifying.

"Alright, I understand your intentions. However, I can’t say that I can guarantee that you’ll turn into a lich if you use the same method as me."

Though they looked disappointed, they still seemed to want to know how it happened.

I couldn’t help shaking my head with a bitter smile when I saw this.