While Ashton was consumed with learning about territory management from Asta, a commotion broke out at the city entrance. Despite his wishes, Ashton begrudgingly closed the tab and made his way towards the gates.
"Ah right, it completely slipped my mind," Ashton mumbled as soon as he saw his skeletal warriors.
In his initial plans, he wanted to resurrect the lizardman before storming Nirvana. But the skeletons failed to find something suitable in the time frame, so Ashton dealt with Nirvana first.
After dealing with the situation, the thought of adding another summon to his arsenal completely slipped his mind. However, the skeletons didn't forget and kept looking for what their master desired, and finally, they found something in accordance with Ashton's needs.
The humans hadn't seen the extent of Ashton's powers and were scared before Ashton arrived and cleared the misunderstanding. But the humans were the only ones in awe of Ashton's abilities.
Although Priska had seen some necromancers before, none of them had thousands of skeletons under their command. Unlike the humans, Priska didn't budge at the sight of the incoming horde.
She had dealt with such hordes before and thought Ashton's skeletons were the same as any other. However, once she got close enough, she realised her assumption couldn't have been more wrong.
These skeletons were just mindless frames but could use mana and martial techniques. From mages to warriors to tanks and archers... the horde was nothing short of a proper army!
'Does the lord even has a limit to his abilities?' She questioned herself, and at that moment, her devotion towards Ashton increased tenfolds.
Priska had no doubts that following Ashton was the right choice for her and her people.
"Wait, if he had so many soldiers out there hunting for god knows what, does it mean-" Alina blurted out.
"Yes, master did not fight against Nirvana at his 100%," Viper replied.
That one statement left the newcomers in awe while those already familiar with Ashton's abilities smiled.
"Everyone, get back to your jobs. Nothing to see here." Ashton hastily waved everyone off.
The Ghosts realised what their captain wanted and ushered the crowd away from the gates. Ashton was willing to disclose his necromancy to them as he couldn't hide it even if he wanted.
However, his Precursor abilities were a different story altogether. The fewer people knew about [Association] and [Disassociation], the better it was.
Once the crowd dissipated, Ashton got to analysing the corpses his skeletons had brought along. Most of them were useless. Well, not entirely useless since they could be used for research purposes and as crafting material.
"Take the Gorillan and Monklin corpses to the Lab. Mera might be able to get some use from them," Ashton instructed the skeletons, "As for the four-legged creatures, send them to the forge. Baiter has been complaining about materials, so this should solve the problem for now."
Sadness was evident in the empty eyes of the skeleton who had brought the corpse Ashton had rejected. Still, they followed his instruction and dragged the bodies away.
"Now let's see..." Ashton mumbled while scratching his cheek.
After the clean-up, only two corpses remained. Both of which had piqued Ashton's interest.
The first one belonged to an 'endangered' species known as Throves. Their build was similar to that of a lizardman but were on the shorter side. But their size only made them more agile. Not to mention their intellect was relatively high, and they were used to living as a pack.
High intellect also meant they were more than capable of wielding weapons and could be trained to fight expertly. However, only a handful had ever been tamed by the werewolves.
Even then, keeping the Throves in check was troublesome as they often lashed out against their masters. Ultimately, taming and training them was deemed unprofitable, leaving them alone in the swamps.
A Throve's intellect was often the reason for their demise. Their pack mentality often led to skirmishes with other groups always ended in a massacre on both sides. Thus giving them the brand of 'endangered' species.
As for the second corpse, well, it belonged to a chimaera. From a glance, Ashton determined the creature was an amalgamation of more than seven creatures. However, its stats failed to impress Ashton.
It would seem the creature was the personification of the idiom, 'Jack of all trades, master of none'. Despite having devoured creatures with various specialities, the Chimaera couldn't retain any of their characteristic features.
However, something had troubled Ashton from the moment he saw the Chimaera. After all, it wasn't a creature that could come into being by itself. Someone must have created it but failed to maximise its abilities.
"A failed experiment, huh?" Ashton gently stroked the creature's face, "However, you might turn out to be more useful than your former master thought. Where did you find this?"
Although the skeletons couldn't speak out loudly, they were intelligent enough to write, and the skeleton mages could also use telepathy to converse with Ashton.
Apparently, the skeletons found the Chimaera while exploring the swamps. But unfortunately, it was the only creature in the cave, which meant whoever created him didn't bother covering their tracks and abandoned the Chimaera around the swamp.
"Since no one goes near the swamps, they must have thought the Chimaera would never be discovered." Ashton mumbled, "I might have to leave a few people to take care of this mess. In the meantime..."
At first glance, the Throve was a more suited candidate to revive. But Ashton knew raising a Throve-Lizardman hybrid won't be beneficial as their potential as a soldier would clash and deteriorate over time.
On the other hand, the Chimaera was a creature with endless potential. Ashton could always add or remove characteristics from the beast as per his desire.
Not to mention, since it was a Chimaera's nature to absorb stronger creatures to get stronger, Ashton wouldn't have a hard time merging the Lizardman and the Chimaera.
"Alright, I've made the decision," Ashton mumbled while placing the lizardman's head over the Chimaera's corpse, "Association!"
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