3x Cloning System: The Fleshmancer's Undead Army is full of Heroes-Chapter 33: Math ain’t mathing

[Original price = 300 Soul Points]

[Applying 3% discount]

[-291 Soul Points]

[Remaining Soul Points = 2,559]

The system was quick to fulfill Clayton’s request as soon as he thought about it. He didn’t even have to speak, which was quite convenient.

She aimed her powers, or best described abilities towards the clones that had survived the massacre inflicted by the Basher Basilisk, and within the blink of an eye, four more of the undead appeared out of thin air.

Their sudden appearance didn’t cause a ripple in the time/space continuum. They simply popped up, they were there, even if under any sensible law in regards to physics, urged that they were not supposed to be there.

The four clones popped up, and looked at Clayton for a moment. They eagerly awaited for a command on his side, but since he didn’t utter a single word, the clones started fucking around, mimicking the behaviour of the undead around them. They poked one another with the tips of their swords as if they were children, and they didn’t seem too bothered in regards to what their master thought about it.

Of course, Clayton did not express any sort of disappointment either. He let them be.

Anyway, after the four clones popped up, the system cloned just one of the clones, once. Now there were five of them, five new clones.

Paired with the four clones that had already survived the massacre, and Esmeralda, Clayton now had a total of ten undead slaves to do his bidding.

’Good,’ He communicated, ’That wasn’t too expensive either. I suppose I can make due with ten slaves for a while...’

[They were 3% cheaper, as a start, but you must understand that it’s not as expensive to clone your slaves once, rather than three times over.]

[If you needed an army of slaves, for example, the five slaves you already have, wouldn’t have nearly been enough to help you save up points. It’s easier to build an army if you already had 100 slaves, because I’d only need to clone them once, for you to have 200 slaves, for example.]

[I hope you’re smart enough to understand what I mean now.]

’I’m certain that I was smart enough to understand you before,’ He followed along, ’Math may not be my strong suit, but it makes sense that cloning hundreds is easier if you already had hundreds of clones to work with.’

Clayton tried to act smart, but then he had to admit, ’I don’t understand how that’s less expensive, though? Wouldn’t a hundred clones drain a lot of my points, compared to cloning four slaves a bunch of times over?’

[The math changes depending on your situation, and demands. I suppose it is cheaper to clone four slaves a few times over, but if you required a thousand slaves, for example, it would be much easier, and less expensive, depending on the approach of the cloning, if you had 100 slaves.]

Clayton pretended that he understood, and nodded along. But in reality, he had to take a moment to do all the math in his head. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Math was not his strong-suit, even with a freshly upgraded IQ, so he had to count with his fingers, muttering over the matter a few times over. The math started making sense to him a little bit, at last, but when he started counting based on the presumption of future situations, where he might have forty, fifty, a hundred, or even five-hundred slaves, the basic understanding he got over the cloning sunk within the void of uncertainty, one that he could not cultivate, because the math in regards to the matter did in fact move a lot.

So he gave up on it, and stuck to what he understood. Cloning his undead slaves once, instead of three times, was cheaper, and in this particular situation, it was in fact cheaper, so he held on to that minor understanding he had over the matter.

Bottom-line, if he was going to succeed with his future plans, he needed a lot more points, be it Soul Points, or Life Essence Points. He didn’t have to do math if he had thousands of them.

Anyway, as he snapped out of his trance-like calculations, he noticed that both Rufus and Lara were in front of him, talking to him. Apparently he had ignored them for a solid two minutes, regardless of the fact that they had called his name.

"Are you losing your marbles, old man?" Rufus asked, "Or are you just ignoring us? If you don’t want to tell us how you summoned more of the undead, then that’s alright... I’m kidding, it’s not alright. I meant to ask you this earlier today, but if you’re a Fleshmancer, then how come you can summon people too? Undead Heroes, worst of all."

"Yes..." Lara caught up, and then added, "Why do they look a lot like the guys that the Basilisk just killed? This doesn’t look like summoning to me, and it doesn’t look like Necromancy either, because I didn’t see them rise from the dead."

Clayton was afraid of situations like this. He dreaded it, as for one thing, he didn’t want to be presumed as a crazy old man.

However, he was already seen as crazy, according to the look in the eye of his friends, a look that they shared in union, but worse yet, they were getting smart. They were well aware that Clayton was not a Summoner, and yet he was mimicking the abilities of a quite advanced Summoner.

It did not make sense to them, but he was hoping that they could not figure out that he was given a grand ability to clone his undead slaves.

At last, he answered, "I assume the Branch of Fleshmancy accelerates quickly? I can get myself plenty of the undead, as long as I have enough Mana, and Life Essence within me. If that makes sense?"

"It does not," Rufus’ eyebrows stitched together, and he scratched his head, "I don’t know anything about Fleshmancy, but I have heard that they are better than Necromancers when it comes to the undead."

"Well," Clayton sighed in relief, "Look around you, I didn’t need to desecrate a grave to raise the undead. Let’s just assume that I need a single bone fragment to grow it into another undead man, or woman, if we’re being respectful."

"You’re not," Lara added, "It’s not respectful to raise the undead, regardless of the gender, Clayton, but let us move on. Unless, we’re camping out for the night? I’m getting tired, and my head is cold."

"You’re bald, that’s why," Rufus added, "Use your hood, little illusionist."

"You’re bad too, bastard," She sneered.

"We won’t be camping tonight," Clayton broke their pattern of petty arguments. "Tommorow night, perhaps?"

The three of them came to an agreement after that point. They decided to keep moving, and with ten total clones to do his bidding, Clayton was able to preserve most of the wealth, in regards to gems and gold.

They looted the corpses of the recently slaughtered slaves, and stuffed them in their armors. Some leather bags were torn, but bags, in general, did not have a lot of contents in them, so Clayton taught the clones how to use small leather bags to their full extent.

They learned quickly, so he and everyone that followed him were on the move, half an hour later.

Quite frankly, Clayton was happy that he could put the very stressful conversation of his presumed ’summoning’ behind them. He was happy to lie to their face, white lies or otherwise, and used the general mystery surrounding Fleshmancy to confuse them.

It worked well enough, so for now, he didn’t have to let anyone in on his secret regarding the system, and cloning. He had read that Fleshmancers could build an undead slave from a single bone fragment, and he used that little bit of information in the exact moment he needed it.

’They don’t need to know about the system,’ He thought, ’If I tell everyone about it, it’s only a matter of time until a bunch of buffoons hunt me down, seeking to rip the system out of me.’

[I didn’t peg you as a coward.]

’You were not hit by a Basilisk,’ He reminded her, ’I’m hard to kill, but I’m not invincible, system.’