In the vast Pure Land, Simon certainly wouldn't be idle.
He collected six or seven acres of soil, intending to cultivate fields.
Life Magic Energy could make crops grow healthily, and then he would live a comfortable life.
Things suddenly became busy.
It was the twenty-fourth day of the First Seed month, and he planned to plant three acres of potatoes, a strip of leeks, and some cabbage before the end of the month.
The outside temperature was too low for farming, but in the Pure Land, he could adjust the temperature, light, and rain through elemental control, making it a farmer's paradise.
For Simon, farming was also a novel experience.
The connection between man and earth is rooted in what one gets, depending on oneself and on heaven.
Now that heaven was controlled by man, farming became a comfortable activity.
Those who labor are not afraid of hardship, but of having no harvest.
For Simon, planting was not just for food; he could also use it to develop animal husbandry, raising a flock of sheep himself, which would make it convenient to get experimental subjects.
He was still researching a magical version of internal energy, but the results were very meager.
Life Magic Energy did not flow through meridians.
Even if he tried to concentrate it with his mind, it was useless.
They were like air, appearing and then disappearing, the whole process smooth and seamless, leaving no trace.
There were some ideas for External Armor, but since they couldn't be applied yet, he put them aside.
Necromancy was becoming increasingly proficient.
Extracting the white souls of sheep, then constructing a Soul Chain, establishing a psychic link with the soul, and then performing the corruption, allowed him to clearly grasp the entire process.
The sensation of the soul being eroded by Necromantic energy would also be transmitted through the psychic link, allowing Simon to have a grasp on the soul's state.
White souls would feel cold when immersed in Necromantic energy, followed by pain.
Tearing pain would distort their soul bodies.
During this process, another magical resonance would appear, which was the key to transformation.
In dozens of experiments, less than one-third of the white souls truly survived the corruption stage, and among these, a portion completely lost their minds, no longer possessing even basic cognitive abilities.
A successful Undead would develop The Core, a logical product, meaning it would have a new concept of life adapted to its current existence.
At least, that was how it appeared in Simon's observations.
The corrupted sheep souls floated slowly in the air, their forms like a translucent, azure blue colloid emitting mist, with a glassy reflection on their surface, moving silently, able to pass through physical barriers, and moving slowly underground.
What factors influenced the formation of The Core was unknown.
Perhaps these Undead were all sheep with ideals in their former lives?
After infusing an Undead into a corpse, the corpse would float, emit a faint blue spiritual light from within, then land, and could move freely.
The reanimated corpse could not withstand the surging Necromantic energy and would collapse after a period of time, and its internal organs did not resume functioning.
Regarding the spell for corpse reanimation, there was an emergency version, which was to directly shape an Undead Core with Necromantic energy and annihilation energy to temporarily revive a corpse.
However, once the corpse could no longer withstand the energy impact and shattered and weathered, this Undead Core would also dissipate—very uneconomical.
Orthodox Necromancy all involved manipulating souls, and after creating an Undead, it could repeatedly revive different corpses—as long as the species were similar.
A Sheep Undead would control a sheep corpse, and a Human Undead would control a human corpse.
Experiments showed that when a Sheep Undead controlled the corpse of a fox, abnormal movements, rapid decay, and other adverse reactions occurred.
The applicability of a single type of Undead was slightly low, which was quite regrettable.
Once he had successfully mastered Necromancy, Simon began to formally research External Armor.
First, he needed to study why one type of Undead could only control one type of corpse, otherwise Simon would have to resort to strange and unaesthetic techniques like inserting a Soul-sucking Tapeworm behind the brain.
Necromancer books mentioned that soul control over the body required a medium, and only with a suitable medium could the soul demonstrate its control over the body.
At this stage of the experiment, Simon once again turned his attention to the meridians.
Artificial meridians could be created to form pathways for Soul Energy to activate External Armor, thus avoiding the issue of Undead compatibility.
As for the material for artificial meridians, the Soul-sucking Tapeworm was, of course, the first choice.
Although the summoning time was limited, it was enough for him to dissect the tapeworm and extract its internal tubes.
Among these three, one was a hollow esophagus that could transmit souls.
Simon experimented by enchanting the outer wall of the esophagus, then having an Undead possess it, and indeed the runes were activated, indicating his idea was correct.
Then he discovered that the inner wall of the esophagus had natural patterns that stabilized Soul Energy, which he noted for later.
Next was to solve the material problem for External Armor, requiring a material that could combine with the tapeworm esophagus, such a material being quite rare.
Initially, Simon thought of using fresh sheepskin, sewing the tapeworm esophagus, and then using a Healing Spell to heal the wound, which would complete the task, but such a creation would rot within a few days.
Simon remembered a rare metal called ebony, or sometimes 'darkwood', which when combined with demonic blood could forge demonic armor, suggesting it might have some magical properties that allowed it to form a symbiosis with living organisms.
That was his thought, but he didn't have any ebony on hand, so he reluctantly gave up on that idea.
Remembering the special patterns on the inner wall of the tapeworm esophagus, perhaps the solution to the problem lay there, so he began to analyze the function of these patterns.
Another week passed in a flash.
Simon, keeping track of time, temporarily put aside his research and routinely set off for Winterhold.
On the way, he noticed several tall wooden ships lingering near the sea where the shipwreck occurred, but Simon did not stop to watch, striding quickly on his way.
He still arrived early.
The boss was waiting for him behind the counter with a drink; now all his food, drink, and lodging at the tavern were free.
The boss was a Foodie who held genuine respect for Simon.
"Foodie! You're here!"
"Hello, Dagur, I'll still need a room."
"Of course, let's have a drink together, in your room."
Simon fell silent for a moment at these words.
"Oh, did that offend you? I apologize, I am truly sorry for my impropriety."
"A drink, of course."
Simon slightly lifted his face covering and drained the glass of mead in his hand.
Dagur could see the thick mane under his hood and his sharp nails; everything else remained hidden beneath his foul-smelling clothes.
A bottle of mead was quickly finished.
Dagur wanted to chat a bit longer, but Simon stood up and bid him farewell, heading out the door.
"Forgive me, but I have things to do, you know, picking up the children from school."
"Then I won't waste your time, but..."
"But what?"
"I'm still curious about your appearance."
"Some things are secrets to protect those who seek them."
"...Alright."
Simon stepped into the snowstorm, feeling for the first time a chilling cold penetrate to his bones.
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