Resurrect, My SSR!

“Your Grace, all the materials you requested are here.”

In the dragon's nest, Fido knelt on one knee and respectfully presented a glowing storage ring.

“Yaaawn...”

On the massive “dragon bed,” Irene yawned and opened her misty eyes, looking like a salted fish that had lost all its dreams.

Her massive dragon body was currently slumped on its back, looking exactly like a turtle that couldn't flip itself over.

Beside her was a mountain of books piled together in a chaotic mess.

As a dragon who “loved to learn,” Irene had ultimately forced herself to stay awake and flip through the entire batch of necromancy spellbooks she had extorted.

By now, although she couldn't claim to have fully mastered them, she had at least memorized most of the key points thanks to the super-memory of her dragon brain, successfully promoting herself to a semi-necromancer.

As for why she was only a “semi” necromancer...

That was because Irene was currently still at the stage of armchair theorizing. She had a brain full of knowledge but had not yet attempted to summon any undead, so she naturally couldn't be called an official necromancer.

Because of this, she had ordered Fido to gather a large amount of magical materials, intending to do some practical application before going to sleep in peace.

Amidst the groaning of the overburdened bedframe, Irene sluggishly crawled out of bed and lazily stretched her body.

She perfectly showed off her dragon body, which was sleeker and more slender than other dragon species, yet still packed with a powerful sense of strength.

After casually casting an Aura of Sanity on herself, Irene's eyes instantly cleared up.

She flipped off the bed, her size rapidly shrinking in midair.

By the time she touched the ground, she had already assumed the form of a young girl.

With her black-and-red magic robes fluttering, Irene walked over to Fido and took the storage ring from his hand.

“Good work.”

Irene said casually, waving her hand to signal Fido to step aside.

She then began pulling out magical materials from the storage ring one by one, laying out a complex magic circle on the floor.

If she were only summoning ordinary undead, it certainly wouldn't require so much effort.

Taking the most basic undead unit, the skeleton soldier, as an example, one only needed to sacrifice a portion of mana or other items of equal value to summon a cheap and useful skeleton soldier from the Underworld, perfect for cannon fodder.

If there was a ready-made corpse, it was even simpler; one only needed to resurrect the corpse as an undead to make it serve them.

The reason Irene went to all this trouble to set up a magic circle was that she intended to directly convert a lich.

Specifically, the Gold Rank old mage, Rudolf, who had been kept in a frozen popsicle state.

For Irene, who had just stepped into the realm of necromancy, attempting to convert a lich right off the bat was undoubtedly biting off more than she could chew.

The level of difficulty was roughly equivalent to asking a college student who had only studied nuclear fission theory to build a nuclear bomb by hand.

Once it failed, a massive amount of magical materials would be completely ruined, a loss that an ordinary person could never afford.

Fortunately, Irene wasn't human; she was a wealthy dragon.

Backed by her wealth, she had plenty of opportunities for trial and error.

After a period of busy preparation, having set up the lich transformation circle, Irene placed the pre-prepared experimental raw material—namely, the frozen popsicle Rudolf—right in the center of the magic circle.

Beside him, she also placed a pitch-black box.

This was the phylactery prepared in advance, which was the most critical item for any lich.

A lich's soul essence resided within the phylactery while their body roamed outside. As long as the phylactery remained intact, even if the body was destroyed, they could resurrect from the phylactery.

However, without external intervention, it would take a very long time.

Irene clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and prayed silently: “Heavenly spirits, earthly spirits, Tiamat above, please bless me to pull the target in one shot!”

Then, she opened her eyes and shouted in a deep voice, “Resurrect! My SSR!”

As soon as she spoke, the runes on the magic circle began to glow.

This indicated that the magic circle had been activated.

The lich transformation ritual had begun.

Pitch-black mist rose from the magic circle, and at the same time, clumps of eerie green flames appeared out of air, floating in the air and gradually drifting toward Rudolf in the center.

The black mist grew thicker and thicker, filling the entire dragon's nest with a chilling, gloomy atmosphere.

Even Fido, who was standing guard nearby, couldn't help but take a step back.

Irene's robes fluttered despite the lack of wind, but she didn't care in the slightest, her eyes locked tightly on the magic circle before her.

In the center of the circle, the frozen corpse was undergoing a subtle transformation.

His originally pale skin grew visibly older at a rate noticeable to the naked eye, shriveling like old tree bark as if most of its moisture had been sucked dry.

This was the undead energy corroding the body!

Time passed minute by minute.

Under Irene's watchful gaze, the corpse finally began to react.

His fingers trembled slightly.

The silent body was reviving in the state of the dead.

At a certain point, a ghostly blue flame appeared in the empty chest cavity where the heart should be on the aged body.

The eerie green flames floating around the magic circle extinguished simultaneously.

In the next instant.

The corpse in the center of the magic circle opened its eyes.

His eyes were cloudy and unfocused, clearly not those of a living person.

Then.

He moved.

The corpse, covered in ice shards and looking no different from aged cured meat pulled straight out of a freezer, slowly began to move.

It attempted to crawl up from the ground.

But his movements were too stiff, resembling the zombies from certain movies on Earth.

After spending a good while, he barely managed to stand up and limped toward Irene.

As he walked, his upper and lower jaws constantly clattered against each other, making a clack-clack-clack sound.

Along with the clattering, flakes of ice and snow fell from his body, leaving a trail behind him on the floor.

He wanted to pay respects to his lord!

“Your Grace, is this... a success?” Fido took a step forward, looking at this “zombie” with some confusion, feeling that this was quite different from the liches of legend.

“No.”

Looking at the low-tier undead that had walked up to her, Irene reached out without hesitation, grabbed its neck, and snapped it with a sudden burst of force.

But for undead creatures, a mere physical fatal wound was not enough to truly kill them.

After all, they were already dead things.

But immediately after, a flash of magical light flared, and the soul fire in the zombie's chest was extinguished on the spot.

Letting go of her grip, Rudolf—who had been brought back to life only to be killed once more—slumped powerlessly to the ground.

Irene patted her hands together rather helplessly and finished her sentence: “...It failed.”

This was actually normal. She was just a beginner. Performing such a complex ritual as a lich transformation for the first time without any practical experience meant the success rate was naturally very low.

Irene didn't let herself get discouraged. She pulled out more magical materials from the storage ring and immediately began the second experiment.

As the magic circle activated, the corpse moved once again.

Only this time, he was still completely mindless, standing in place in a daze.

Irene was too lazy to even lift a finger and simply ordered Fido to go up and kill him.

For Fido, who had already promoted to the Silver Rank, killing a mere low-tier undead of the Black Iron Rank was incredibly easy.

Thus, the newly resurrected low-tier undead, before it could even figure out what was going on, was plunged back into darkness once more.

The third experiment.

“Ugh...”

Just as the corpse crawled up and let out a growl, Irene directly fired a Mana Blast, blowing away the soul fire that had just ignited in the newborn undead's chest.

The fourth experiment...

The fifth experiment...

The sixth experiment...

...

The fifth day...

After instantly killing Rudolf, who had resurrected as a low-tier undead yet again, Irene's gaze had turned somewhat vacant.

The last trace of her sleepiness had completely vanished.

The massive amount of wasted magical materials made her feel like her heart was bleeding.

She only felt that the north wind was so biting, and her heart was so cold.

Over a hundred experiments.

Not a single success!

“Could I be... an unlucky ‘African’ dragon?”

Irene muttered to herself.

Then she remembered that she was a black dragon.

Suddenly, she had a bizarre sense of déjà vu, feeling an inexplicable urge to return to Africa on Earth and inherit the title of African Chieftain.

“Damn it! I don't believe this!”

Shaking her head to dispel the bizarre thoughts, Irene prepared the magic circle again while grumbling, “No kid cries forever, and no one loses every single gacha pull!”

“My SSR, show yourself!”

Watching from the side, this was the first time Fido had ever seen his Grace stamping her feet in anger.

He wanted to step forward and offer a few words of comfort, but felt he probably wouldn't be able to calm her down.

Thus, he could only silently take half a step back.

To avoid becoming the target of her venting.

Black mist billowed out, and the magic circle was activated once more.

The soul fire ignited in the corpse's chest once again.

Only this time, unlike before, the phylactery beside the corpse also reacted.

A much more robust blue flame burned fiercely inside the phylactery!

Seeing this, Irene's entire dragon self froze in disbelief. She wondered, Did I just trigger the hard pity?

However, she quickly suppressed her emotions and walked toward the magic circle.

Before she could even get close, the icy corpse suddenly sat up.

Those cloudy eyes stared at Irene, who was right in front of him.

The soul fire in his chest flickered twice.

His beard, covered in ice shards, trembled.

He actually opened his mouth slowly.

And let out a somewhat slurred voice: “Ma... ma...”