Chapter 437 – Repairing Zombies

Chapter 437 – Repairing Zombies

Mo Lan, Vasida, and Lilith scrambled to claim their share, and in less than three minutes, they had divided the hundred-plus zombies into three groups and begun attempting to repair their bodies.

Vasida and Lilith had been quick enough when snatching up zombies, but when it came to actually repairing and maintaining them, they stumbled quite a bit.

Although the two of them had read quite a few books on the subject in preparation for creating zombie death servants, reading was one thing — actually mastering the skills was still a long way off!

Moreover, what they had read the most were books on creating death servants, which they had at least gone through several times and studied carefully. As for the books on repair and maintenance, they had only skimmed through them!

Fortunately, zombies weren’t real patients. They wouldn’t complain about having “quack doctors” working on them. When told to line up, they stood there quietly, motionless.

They didn’t cry out in pain, didn’t complain about the slow pace, and even when the repairs were done poorly or made things worse, they only looked slightly confused — never protesting.

Vasida and Lilith would examine whatever problem a zombie’s body presented, try to recall which book they had seen the corresponding treatment in, then flip through their Grimoires to look up the information. Once they found it, they would follow the solution described in the book, learning and repairing on the spot.

If the repair went well, everyone was happy. If it didn’t, they would start over from scratch.

If they truly couldn’t fix something, they would simply replace the entire part with a new one.

The body materials the zombies carried with them had been torn from their own fallen comrades or opponents on the battlefield — whatever they happened to pick up — and were often unusable.

Fortunately, neither of them was short on mana. They could buy corpse material cards from the Card Shop, adjust the body part and size, and achieve a perfect fit.

The thing was, body parts taken from other zombies, even if long neglected, had at least been preserved at some point. But the corpses from corpse material cards were genuinely fresh bodies.

So at minimum, a basic preservation treatment had to be performed before the parts could be attached, which made things a bit more troublesome.

When witches maintained and repaired death servants, the general practice was to use old parts as long as they were still functional, and only replace them with new ones when absolutely necessary.

It was only because their skills were truly not up to par and they couldn’t manage the repairs that they would spend their own materials on full replacements.

Fortunately, they had properly studied basic preservation in preparation for creating death servants.

Though they stumbled along the way, at least no zombie ended up leaving in worse shape than when it arrived.

Throughout this process, Vasida and Lilith’s zombie repair skills were steadily improving.

The two of them had been quite satisfied with their progress — until they accidentally glanced over at Mo Lan’s side.

When Mo Lan did repairs, she was fast, precise, and decisive!

Arms twisted at unnatural angles? She found the right spot, gave one twist, and snapped them back into place. Legs that didn’t fit properly? She decisively detached them and reattached new ones. Belly skin torn open? She reapplied preservative treatment and sewed on new skin. Shattered bones? She cut open the flesh and repaired them from within…

For every single zombie, the repair strategy she chose on the first attempt was the right one, and every repair succeeded.

She never had to start over.

It gave the impression that she had been repairing corpses for many years — like some veteran necromancer witch with uniquely masterful techniques.

She had even already imbued her suturing tools, allowing her to control them with mana so they sutured automatically. It could be considered a variant of Sewing Magic — corpse Sewing Magic.

Every spot that needed stitching was handled by several oddly-shaped forceps.

Fast and flawless!

The key thing was, they had all started learning at roughly the same time and were all just beginning to create their first death servants.

This overwhelming pressure felt somewhat familiar to Vasida — as though she were back at the Academy again.

It was even more baffling and shocking than during their school days, because during this entire period, they had clearly spent their days together, and at night they all did the same thing — meditation in place of sleep.

“Moira, don’t tell me you learned corpse suturing in a past life too!” Vasida couldn’t help asking. “Even with past-life experience, the techniques should still be different when combined with magic, right? How did you master it so quickly?”

“More or less,” Mo Lan said. “Past-life experience plus Valen’s knowledge of corpse preservation and repair — with a little practice, it all comes together.”

“How did you practice?” Lilith asked.

Before today, where would they have gotten any practice materials?

“Pig skin!” Mo Lan said. “You two didn’t practice?”

After saying this, she thought about it more carefully and remembered — this method of practicing on pig skin came from Earth knowledge. She didn’t think she had seen it in any witch’s book.

“Even so, you practiced way too fast!” Vasida said. “I feel like your technique is on par with my mother’s!”

“My past-life experience was a bit too extensive, that’s all — that’s why I picked it up so easily,” Mo Lan said, feeling a bit guilty.

In her mind, she had the experience of who knew how many surgeons, forensic pathologists, funeral directors, corpse makeup artists, and specimen preparators!

And the key thing was that all this experience was remarkably versatile.

One look at these battered, broken-down zombies and she felt as though every kind of expert had possessed her at once. Her vast psychic power, like a supercomputer, effectively merged the necromancer witch knowledge of corpse preservation and repair she had studied with her past-life experience. She instinctively knew what to do.

Compared to Lilith and Vasida, she did feel a bit like she was cheating.

It was all because her Earth mother had given her too much!

“If you two aren’t sure about something, feel free to ask me. I might have a solution,” Mo Lan said.

“Then we won’t hold back,” Vasida said immediately.

Given Mo Lan’s skill level, asking her was far better than flipping through books and guessing on their own.

Even when it came to looking things up, asking Mo Lan first made the search faster and more precise — she could pinpoint exactly which book and which page had the solution recorded.

But Lilith said, “Let’s watch your repair techniques and learn from them first, then try it ourselves afterward!”

Vasida was reminded too. “Yes, yes, yes! Let’s watch yours first!”

At Mo Lan’s pace, the remaining zombies on her side could all be finished in less than one night.

Many of the zombies had similar injuries, so observing Mo Lan’s repair methods before attempting their own would be far more helpful to them.

Mo Lan thought of this too, so she simply helped them sort out the zombies with similar body issues, then repaired while teaching them, letting them follow along and practice.

By teaching them, Mo Lan herself could also solidify her grasp and become more proficient — slightly better than just burying herself in solo repairs.

Lilith and Vasida no longer had to resort to their “replace everything with new parts” approach at the first sign of trouble, and their repair skills improved by leaps and bounds.

With over a hundred zombies, plus some newly injured ones joining the queue along the way, the three of them worked for a full three days and three nights before finishing them all.

Lilith and Vasida had just found their groove and were left wanting more. On impulse, they ran over to the graveyard, knocked on coffin lids, dug out the sleeping zombies, and gave each one a thorough overhaul.

With every zombie’s body now limber and functional, the casualty rate from their outings to fight dropped considerably.