Bro, I'm not an Undead!-Chapter 1433 : Nullmancy 101 (1)

Apparently, an Espoxes Apothecator was a race of beings that generated and developed different kinds of poisons within their bodies.

Immediately, Skullius thought about the Cold Oblivion, the Colossus Warmoth's lethal poisonous vapor, fatal to all living, unliving, and Null-living things except those that – quite like the Warmoth himself – had Ju`wtte running through their veins.

Had the Warmoth learned about Cold Oblivion from these Apothecators? It wasn't a reach, since he had developed Ju`wtte by studying the Levin of the Penetrators.

Serenity gave her condolences to Unnio Lak, as did Skullius himself. The paper cut-out received their words of empathy with more drawn tears. He beckoned them to drink their tea before it turned cold, a notion Skullius found immensely strange considering the look of it – its vapor-like state. Would it condense into liquid when cold?

The Hybrid Warmoth had better questions to ask the powerful Null Lifeform, however. His greatest interest laid in something he had said before when mentioning Gurron-Laggan's funeral.

"If I may ask, you said you and Gurron's Apostles were the only ones to attend his funeral. If he had passed, how were his Apostles still… functional?" Skullius asked.

Weaver gave him a strange look. He might have known the answer already.

Unnio Lak was taken aback. He didn't answer the question immediately. Instead, he made his own inquiry.

"Are you a Nullmancer by any chance?" He began looking at Skullius' Apostles closely. His drawn eyes brightened with each second as he appraised Araeyn, and they bulged when he looked at Weaver. "You are! And you have some impressive summons! How in the world did you manage to tame a Duke of Transversal? You even have a Nulliergrapher too! Hahaha! Gurron-Lavaan would have spilled his guts over this!"

Skullius didn't know how to respond. The mood changed suddenly. It shifted solely for and because of the paper cut-out.

"You know, Gurron-Lavaan could have traded you something for that Nulliergrapher. He ended up settling for a few subpar options after he retired. He even employed this one bounty hunter to catch him an Umbo Hive, ranked fifteenth on the Banner. The hunter died, sadly. Gurron-Lavaan was livid then." The paper cut-out lost himself to reminiscence and then he restored himself to the present. He appraised Skullius, but he still did not answer his question.

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"For you to be asking me about such a basic question to Nullmancy while you have such a staggering reserve of Null Life Essence... You're not an Authority, and I don't think you are something on the Banner. You must be…" The paper cut-out turned to Serenity.

"He's my bearer from the world outside," she said plainly.

"Oh."

Unnio Lak didn't look as surprised as Skullius had expected he would or even should be.

"That doesn't surprise you?" Skullius asked.

"Why would it?" said Unnio Lak with a look of great fascination. He searched every inch of the Hybrid Warmoth. "Since eons long lost, many – those who are cognizant of the fact that there is a world outside this one – have sought Serenity's favor. They have begged her to make them her right hands, but she's refused them all. It became a known fact soon enough that she must have someone already. Someone from the outside world."

Skullius gave Serenity a queer look. She shrugged.

"You are a lot weaker than I expected though," continued Unnio Lak. Skullius frowned. "I only took you for a high-tier expert, but that was only because of your Null Life reserves. Now that I had a deeper look... Ah, you possess the powers of the Warmoth? Huh. Interesting."

The increasing disinterest in him from the paper cut-out pissed off Skullius a little. Even when Unnio Lak detected the powers of the Warmoth in him, he wasn't impressed. Skullius imagined it was because the Warmoth's intellect was his greatest weapon, the reason why he qualified for the Universal Purge Banner at one point.

Also, as far as Skullius could tell – and he was sure he was missing a lot from Unnio Lak – the paper cut-out was far stronger than he was. He had great reserves of Null Life Essence, nowhere his at the moment, but that was not a negative feat when one considered that Skullius was only this saturated with Null Life Essence because of the boon he got from arriving in the Null Verse.

"That stings," he said, swallowing his pride. "But could you answer my first question? As you can imagine, I'm missing a lot about Null Life powers, and I've accumulated several more questions while you were speaking."

The paper cut-out gave a laugh. Skullius continued to be puzzled by how casual he was towards everything he was seeing.

"A Nullmancer's Apostles are only ever dependent on them at the beginning, before they establish a base strength above a certain threshold. After that, they are their own entity, not entirely under the Nullmancer's control unless they treat them right," Unnio Lak explained. "After the Nullmancer's passing, the Apostles can choose to follow them, or continue on with their Null lives."

Skullius had already begun to spin the answer around his mind since Unnio Lak mentioned that bit about Gurron-Lavaan's passing, but getting it confirmed still staggered him. He gave Araeyn and Weaver odd looks. He couldn't get the annoying image of them outliving him out of his mind, somehow.

"What about what you said about Gurron-Lavaan trading something with me for the Weaver – my Nulliergrapher?" Skullius asked.

Unnio Lak took a sip of his tea. It was unknown how he drank with a one-dimensional mouth.

"Nullmancy must be different for someone like you – a bearer of Null Life Essence. Let me explain the basics, and you can tell me how they differ from what you know," he said. "A Nullmancer can only make an Apostle out of a creature they have killed themselves. The process of making the Apostle involves the Nullmancer sharing the essence they generate through their ownership of a Nullmancer Class – this essence being divided into ten portions, of course – with the felled enemy, raising them as a pseudo-obedient unit that follows them."

With the other abilities offered by the Nullmancer Class, the Nullmancer is then able to temper with the growth and characteristics of an Apostle, rapidly speeding up their growth and introducing it to evolutionary paths outside their normal progression. Of course, the progression depends on what kind of Nullmancer the user is. A Bone Nullmancer, a Flesh Nullmancer, a Soul Nullmancer, or the highest tier of Nullmancer: the simple Nullmancer."

Skullius had his mouth agape.

"What?"