The Ruined Death Knight-Novel

The option to choose 3 modifications out of many appeared in front of Danzel in the [Soul of Death Essence] passive skill.

From them all, Danzel chose [Soul Affinity], [Dead Mana Affinity], and [Power Increase]. He could have also chosen to make the discount for getting skills much bigger, but he decided against it.

Since this skill affected the performance of almost all his skills, he hoped to increase the 20%.

Though he still found it too risky to put his tempering point into that option. Ending up putting it at [Soul Affinity].

Turning the skill into [Unceasing Soul of Death Essence]

[Unceasing Soul of Death Essence]: A case where an undead completely accustoms dead mana on his soul and vessel. Raising all attributes by 50% while being [?], also making the soul more capable to preserve in [?]. Resulting in all Death and Soul-attuned skills and talents being 40% more effective. Alas, such a soul would never again be able to be hosted in a body that hasn't been created or born from dead mana.

All Attributes increased by 70.

Lowers the cost of Curse, Death, and Soul Attuned Skills by a total of 25%

Every 4 years, 25 attribute points is being granted.

[Talent [Superior Undead] turned into [Exalted Undead]

Danzel only manages to glance at the new talent before a wave of notifications started rapidly appearing in front of him.

[You have met the requirements to evolve!]

[Evolution will continue!]

[You choose to become a Death Knight! Evolution will proceed!]

[Choose 4 out of 9 Talents to permanently gain!

[Reinforced Body]

[Magic Resistance]

[Deathless Will]

[Dread Aura]

[Dominate the Dead]

[Soul Nemesis]

[Grand Undead General]

[Carving Fate with Death]

[Cursed Hands]

[Can temper one single Talent of your choice]

Danzel ethereal eyes flared up at the number of options and how many talents he could pick this time.

He saw some familiar options such as [Dread Aura], [Magic Resistance], and [Reinforced Body] from his previous evolution option. While [Dread Aura] could be considered a nice combo with the [Rune of Intimidating Will] as it would trigger [Nightmare] as soon as the [Terror] triggers, he still didn't want to go the route of breaking others' minds with a simple stare.

Though if the other options were bad, he would consider picking it as he also had the [Vampiric Gaze] skill.

As for the other two talents, they were good, but not great enough to be chosen.

Going down the list, there was [Dominate the Dead]

[Dominate the Dead]: A talent that only the undead of higher tier have the privilege of having. Lesser Undead will bend to your will and serve as their lord regardless if they were created by you or not. Can be resisted with great mental capabilities or a will greater than yours. Can briefly animate corpses to fight for you, no mana cost is required.

'I see...it's basically a better version of [Undead Domination].' Danzel moved to the next talent.

He wasn't interested in forcing other undead that wasn't created by him to work for him and even less in creating zombies for free.

[Soul Nemesis]: A undead who has the rare affinity of souls. Having destroyed a soul with his own soul essence, you became the nemesis of the soul. Allowing you to absorb the soul essence of others made by a physical weapon with no after-effects. Once per day, you can designate one weapon, allowing it hit the soul's essence.

'That's more like it!' Danzel yelled internally.

​ While cutting one's soul essence wasn't the same as cutting a soul directly, he had long ago learned that harming one's soul essence was quite harmful, considering that it affects the soul.

But the most attractive thing about this talent was the fact that he could absorb other soul essences, solving the problem that he had with the [Great Rune of Ruined Vessel].

Till now those two talents brought the urge to instantly pick them, though he perceived to see the others even if he doubted that it couldn't get any better.

[Grand Undead General]: A higher tier undead that commanded thousands of undead and led them to claim the lives of the living while being victorious. The dead will easier raise for your cause and hear your commands though lands far and wide. All undead created by you will have 25% more attributes than they were supposed to gain permanently, your commands will last longer and distance will be creater. Additionally, allow yourself to see through the vision of one of your undead for a period of time. The undead that will share his vision with you will receive a 50% buff on all attributes and their death attune skills for the period of the duration.

'That's indeed powerful...I would bet that Velkir has something of this sort.'

This seemed like a must-have talent for necromancers which Danzel half*ssed trying to be. He started to feel the pain of having to choose only a limited amount of them and he still hasn't gone through all the skills yet!

He didn't even have the time to think about it as his body was urging him to hurry. Not to forget that he was on the battlefield. Till now he spends a total of 20 seconds reading through it and that was only because of how high his intelligence stat was.

Another example of great talent was [Deathless Will], which would increase his mental resistance by a total of 50% while also when he dies for good, the talent will bring him back to 500 HP and make his body move in top shape.

It was essentially another lifeline just like his [Undying] Talent, but it would also make him resist mental attacks and lessen the struggle of [Sin of Wrath].

The other talents were also hard to miss.

[Carving Fate with Death]: A Undead who is capable to carve runes into items that decide the fate of others. Most of the time their fate is death itself. Through mastery of your art, you managed to find out how to make your runes smaller, make them put less stress, and increase their effectiveness by a total of 25%. Only works on runes that are either death or soul attuned.

[Cursed Hands]: In your hands, you cursed hundreds and let them to their demise and being there to see their suffering till the very end of your curse. Granting you the knowledge to learn curses while also improving the potency of your cursed just as the duration for a total of 25%. You gain the Talent of [Leech Touch] and [Drain Vitality Touch].

Reading through them, Danzel felt bitter only having to choose 4 of all those amazing talents.

Except for [Reinforced Body] and [Magic Resistance], all other options were a must-have in his eyes. [Cursed Hands] granted him a total of 2 talents and probably allowed him to learn spells and runes just like [Dead Rune Knowledge] and [Lower Class Death Magic].

And the others were massive bonuses that couldn't be overlooked!

'Why can't I have all!?' He cursed internally as he felt the undead he made to stop others from annoying him to dropping in their numbers.

"I must hurry..."

He quickly did a process of elimination on the must-haves and the lesser good ones,

[Soul Nemesis] and [Carving Fate with Death] was the must-haves on his list.

The former was way too good to pass on while the latter was because he invested way too much into runes to pass the chance of not improving them further. It would also allow him to carve a great rune into his body.

Making them an easy pick.

Now the question lay upon the [Cursed Hands], [Grand Undead General], and [Deathless Will].

The other talents while they were alright, they weren't great for Danzel's needs.

[Cursed Hands] will raise his individual strength by far the best.

[Grand Undead General] in turn was the complete opposite, it would grant him utility to see for a far while also strengthing his undead.

As for [Deathless Will], it will probably help him suppress his [Sin of Wrath] while also granting him another lifeline which was slightly inferior to [Undying].

Being pressed on time and his body slowly cracking from passing the limit of his body didn't help him either.

Contemplating what to choose, he decided to pick out of the 2 remaining slots, [Deathless Will] so that he wouldn't ever be overwhelmed by his emotions and march to his death just like he did not too long ago.

Also having another life in your pockets proved till now to be quite useful. And with the healing abilities that he has now, the disadvantage of having 500 HP could be prevented.

But the tough choice with the remaining slot.

[Grand Undead General] or [Cursed Hands].

It was like asking him if he rather wanted to give up on curse magic or the creation of the undead.

A task that he found impossible to do.

Alas, he had to make a choice.

'And I didn't even choose what talent to temper yet!'