Chapter 1: Forensic Medicine and Zombies

  Awakened by a cacophonous and headache-inducing chant, Luo Wei opened his eyes to find seven fragmented moons arranged in the shape of the character for "heaven" in the sky, each with a different color. At that moment, Luo Wei had no idea that he had crossed over; he thought he was still dreaming.

  The next moment, Rovi, who was gazing up at the night sky, raised his right hand to try and touch the fourth crescent moon that seemed both far away in the distance yet close enough to be within reach, for it was - the divine realm of the goddess of fate, Trana.

  The divine country of the goddess of fate, Trana?

  Luó Wéi was startled by himself, he didn't know why he had such a strange judgment.

  But Rove didn't have time to ponder, for he discovered that his right hand stretching towards the sky was actually a rotting corpse's hand with almost all its finger bones exposed due to severe decay of skin and flesh.

  Attached to the rotting hand was a rotting arm with some dark green skin still remaining, and on the rotting arm was a long gown made of even more rotten hemp.

  "Have I turned into a corpse that's already started to decay? This can't be happening, I must have gone crazy from being a forensic doctor for too long..."

  Luó Wēi was about to say something, but all that came out were a series of hoarse "heh heh" sounds.

  What's wrong with my throat?

  Reaching back to touch his own neck, Luo Wei did not feel the Adam's apple that should have been wrapped in skin, but instead felt a large hole where both the skin and skeleton were severely damaged.

  Still big holes after re-exploration.

  Throat turned into a big hole, still can live and jump around?

  With three years of autopsy experience, Luo Wei couldn't think of any reason why someone could still be alive with a throat that had become a huge hole, so a strong thought emerged in his mind: I think I desperately need a mirror.

  Then, in front of Luo Wei, a mirror really appeared. One was made of ice condensed from the cold and floated in mid-air, ignoring gravity - an Ice Mirror.

  In the icy mirror, a face with hard lines was reflected, although Luo Wei had never seen this face before.

  Pale skin with a hint of dark green, eyes that shone with a faint green light but whose pupils were indistinct, and the large hollow at the base of his neck... all combined to make Luo Wei feel that the face in the mirror no longer belonged to a living person.

  But after swaying back and forth and touching a few times, Luo Wei's eyes cleared up the face in the mirror that didn't belong to a living person, now it was his reality.

  All of this led Luo Wei to a desperate final conclusion - I'm probably being transported, and was transported into an undead, an undead that seems to be able to use magic!

  Luo Wei started to hate the piercing sound that woke him up, even though he was already tired of his job as a forensic pathologist dealing with corpses every day. Then, in his free time browsing the internet, he had thought "it would be great if I could travel through time and space, no family or home to worry about". But who would have thought that being a forensic pathologist would turn him into an undead zombie?

  If it weren't for the experience of having seen all sorts of dead bodies as a forensic pathologist, Luo Wei wouldn't have thought that after confirming he had turned into a zombie, he could still maintain his rationality and start thinking about how to struggle to survive.

  Yes, Luo Wei has calmed down and started thinking about how to survive next.

  After all, whether or not to accept it, being turned into a zombie has already become an established fact. Luo Wei did not intend to waste this terrible opportunity for crossing over, or in other words ——

  Rovin doesn't want to be killed by anyone in the name of love and maintaining world peace with methods such as explosion, holy water splash, purification magic or other cruel ways.

  "Huh, so you've awakened a first-circle lich who can release an ice crystal shield? Let me guess, when you were alive, you must have been an ice elementalist who nobody appreciated until the day you died? You know, it's just great to see this kind of thing happen. I hate people like you who are born with innate magical abilities and don't even need to be apprentices!"

  That ear-piercing and headache-inducing voice that woke Rovi up earlier once again entered Rovi's ears, effortlessly interrupting his thoughts.

  Turning his head in the direction of the sound, Rove saw a gaunt young man with a pockmarked face, wearing a pale gray robe with black trim, the attire of an apprentice to the Death Cult sorcerers.

  "This is a poor undead lich apprentice, with no magical tools on him that emit any magical fluctuations."

  A nearly subconscious judgment emerged from Luo Wei's zombie-like brain, allowing him not only to understand the language of the undead wizard apprentice that was absolutely not a human language but also to judge his identity and wealth.

  But...

  Why can I make such a judgment?

  As he asked himself, Luo Wei recalled the action of subconsciously stretching out his hand towards the sky when he had just awakened, trying to touch the fourth crescent moon above, and clearly knew that the fourth crescent moon represented the gesture of the goddess of fate, Traena.

  Luo Wei was very certain that these judgments and behaviors absolutely did not belong to him, who should have been a forensic pathologist on Earth.

  So these memories, like instincts, belong to the soul of this body originally?

  It must be so.

  Rovin's gaze fixed on the lich apprentice, and he had a bit of an epiphany. He began to have some interest in wanting to understand more about the original soul that this body once held.

  "What are you staring at, you brainless fool who can't even answer questions? Do you dare to question the great departed spirit wizard Makar-Gyssent's conjecture? Hurry up and dispel the Ice Crystal Shield, don't waste your enviable magical abilities anymore! Damn it, in the name of the Rotten Lord, I will eventually surpass the great departed spirit wizard Makar-Gyssent, who is greater than the White Bone Shepherd. I command you to roll out of the tomb immediately!"

  The ear-piercing sound that gave Luo Wei a headache rang out again.

  It's clear that the undead warlock apprentice was commanding Rove.

  Luo Wei slowly got up from the tomb, he couldn't make his movements faster because as a zombie known for being slow in action, it was indeed not easy to move those stiff joints and muscles.

  As for the Ice Crystal Shield, this magic collapsed on its own as soon as Lovie moved.

  As he stood up, Rove found that the lich's apprentice had also awakened five other zombies, who appeared to have been ordinary civilians when they were alive judging from their tattered clothes.

  "Great, I love mindless idiots who obey commands, especially ones like you whose brains haven't completely rotted yet! Hah, if tonight wasn't my first time making an offering to the Lord of Decay, I'd definitely keep you and train you into a more obedient corpse than a dog."

  As he said this, the lich's apprentice walked up to Rove and slapped his zombie face with a loud crack.

  Luoyi didn't say a word, he simply raised his hands slowly with an extremely slow motion.

  "But anyway, if I sacrifice you, this stupid undead wizard, I'll definitely get a better reward! And then I can..."

  The undead apprentice continued to chatter on, but this time he didn't get a chance to finish his sentence before suddenly realizing that the zombie Rovi, who was supposed to be listening obediently to his lecture, had suddenly grabbed his neck with both hands.

  An apprentice necromancer who doesn't know any dark magic is no different from a sheep waiting to be slaughtered as long as the throat used for speaking is controlled.

  Ordinary brainless zombies can't even strangle a novice necromancer's apprentice, making it impossible for them to cast spells and suffocating them. But if Luo Wei, who has been doing autopsies for three years, still doesn't know the human body structure and isn't clear about how to quickly suffocate someone to death, then he deserves to be used as a sacrifice.

  About a minute and a half later, the corpse of the Lich's apprentice collapsed to the ground like a puddle of mud. He didn't even leave behind any last words, his eyes frozen in a permanent stare as he died beyond death itself.

  To be strangled to death by the very zombies one has summoned, what a humiliating way to die for a necromancer, who can bear it?

  "You shouldn't have told me that I'm to be sacrificed to the Lord of Decay, just because I inexplicably crossed over and became a zombie doesn't mean I'm willing to become a sacrifice."

  Looking down at the deceased spirit witch apprentice who was choked to death by himself, Luo Wei wanted to say something to make him understand before he died, but what came out of his mouth was still a series of "heh heh" sounds like a broken accordion.

  "As long as you advance to become an undead overlord, you can recover some of your language abilities."

  The residual memories of the zombie's body originally belonged to its soul, and once again actively transmitted this consciousness to Luo Wei's soul.

  This put Rouvi on high alert, and he tried to communicate with the zombie's original soul in his mind, but he didn't get any response.

  To be honest, this made Luo Wei secretly let out a breath of relief in his heart.

  When friends come, there is fine wine; when wolves come, there are hunting guns... Luo Wei doesn't think that occupying someone else's body is the kind of behavior that would get a warm welcome from friends.

  So now this zombie body's main soul is no longer there, only leaving some fragmented memories that occasionally pop up to provide a hint of assistance, which is what makes Luo Wei feel most at ease.

  Lovic thought so, and with a shaky body, he squatted down and began to search the corpse of the deceased spirit magic apprentice with his bony hands.

  Even though the wizarding apprentices are known for their poverty, this poverty is relative, so Rove doesn't think that the deceased spirit wizard apprentice wouldn't have one or two private goods hidden away.

  This was also the "help hint" given by the residual memories of the zombie's body, and this help hint was correct, because Luo Wei indeed sensed two things from the corpse of the deceased wizard apprentice.

  The first item was a notebook, and after flipping through it, he discovered to his surprise that he could actually recognize the handwriting. Luo Wei took a rough look and confirmed that the notebook contained four low-level necromancy spells: "Awakening of the Dead", "Dark Law", "Corpse Refining", and "Soul Fire Deprivation". In addition, there was also a diagram of a "Necromancy Sacrifice" magic array inserted in the middle of the notebook.

  "Raise Dead" is used to awaken originally sleeping corpses as zombies or skeletons.

  The effect of "Dark Command" is to stun and suppress undead creatures.

  "The Corpse Refining" is clear from the name, but the materials needed to cast this necromancy are quite evil - five female corpse finger bones, three eyeballs from different corpses, and a small piece of the caster's own palm skin.

  Soulfire Plunder is an evil spell that allows a lich to directly extract the fundamental essence of an undead creature's existence, namely its soulfire, from the corpse. However, it can only be cast on undead with a lower soul strength than the lich itself, and the plundered soulfire has little use for the lich.

  As for the necromancy sacrifice magic circle, this is an evil thing - it allows the necromancer to exchange rewards from the Lord of Decay by sacrificing souls in his name!

  Although he had only glanced at it briefly, Rove found that he had completely mastered the four lost soul spells after recording them in his notes.

  Completely mastering it means that Luo Wei has firmly memorized the lengthy and tongue-twisting incantations of the four undead magic spells.

  Even at the time of "soul fire deprivation", there was a short mantra consisting of key words that rose from his heart, allowing Luo Wei to even achieve silent casting of this spell!

  These...

  Is it still the help of residual memories in a zombie body?

  With this clear understanding in mind, Luo Wei became curious about the original identity of the undead body he was occupying. Wasn't it said by the deceased spirit apprentice who had been killed by him that the identity of this undead body when it was alive should be an Ice Element affinity holder?

  Ice element affinity and mastery of necromancy is really too cross-border.

  Unfortunately, apart from the tattered and worn-out hemp clothes on the zombie's body, there were no burial objects that could prove its identity. Then Luo Wei finally remembered the tombstone that recorded a person's life information, so he turned to his "own" tombstone.

  "Even if everyone else abandons you, at least here there is someone who still remembers that you were once - my pride."

  Grey Moon Calendar 2733 - Grey Moon Calendar 2770.

  There is no name on the tombstone, only two lines of elegy and the time of birth and death.

  Luoyi really wanted to sigh with a bitter smile, because this tombstone that didn't even have the deceased's name engraved on it seemed to serve no other purpose than to further pique his curiosity.

  So Luo Wei carefully put away the notebook of the deceased spirit wizard apprentice with slow movements, and began to examine the second thing obtained from the deceased spirit wizard apprentice.

  The second one is a mercenary task scroll, the scroll inside writes a useful intelligence task: "Task target: Go to Gasserwin mountain area, drive out the undead plague in Nefre mine village, eliminate all undead creatures inside and find out the reason for the outbreak of the undead plague. Task reward: 100 gold coins (Ritter Gold Coin)."

  Nevada Mine Village?

  This specific noun involuntarily conjured up a picture in Luo Wei's mind -

  Everywhere, small mountains of ore piled up haphazardly, black low wooden sheds for miners built haphazardly everywhere, spider web-like dense mountain roads for transporting ore and disorderly scattered black mine holes... On the rough wooden stage of a dim tavern, a brown-haired woman with exposed clothes was dancing with a forced smile, occasionally being pawed at by dirty miners.